The three sides
by Virgulin Tartaquamis
Summary: An interactive fanfic hold at the GameFAQs message boards now brought here by the same author. It starts right after the end of Kingdom Hearts (1) and reaches a happy and surprising ending.
1. Chapter 1: Recognissance

(First of all I do not own the rights of Sora, Riku, Kairi, and all Kingdom Hearts/Final Fantasy characters. The plot played here isn't the same played at the Kingdom Hearts games until now released. But I do own the rights of the original characters that appear here and not on the games.)  
  
Thirteen months have passed. Sora's been numb lately, while playing around with Pluto or staring at the sky. The thing he most wanted to do in that moment was be with Kairi. It's been a long, loooong time since they last spoke.  
  
At this moment, a ball smashed Sora's head.  
  
"Ouch! Who the f..." he gets up and looks around. There was nobody. "Pluto?" he calls.  
  
The sky gets dark. A familiar cloaked man appears behind Sora and startles him by touching his shoulder.  
  
"W-who the hell are you?"  
  
"...Don't... try... to... understand... just... walk your way... to... the... ... ...door...".  
  
Sora's mind beigns to get hazy and twisted. When Sora opened his eyes, he could not se anything. Gradually his eyes were getting used to the lightning of the place he was. Then he felt he was sitting in a soft place... it was... sand...? Then he realized he was in a beach.  
  
"I... know this place..." he really did. He was at Destiny Islands again.  
  
He got up quickly and looked around, excited. Only one person was on his mind at that moment: Kairi.  
  
Sora rushed to the residential island, looking for her but it was empty. There was no sign of people there. The place was deserted.  
  
He went to his house looking for his mom and it was empty too. What the hell could have happened?  
  
"'Couldn't it be the guy in the cloak' you may be thinking" someone said behind him.  
  
"YOU!" Sora yelled, facing the cloaked guy again.  
  
"I will make things easier for you. Ansem is back. Somehow not alone."  
  
"He's the one who made everyone here disappear?"  
  
"Not only here, but in every single world out there." the cloaked man sit on a chair. "You still got the keyblade?"  
  
Sora searched for it.  
  
"It's gone! The keyblade is gone!"  
  
"Alright, calm down. Come with me, first we got to find your key and then we'll look for Ansem."  
  
"You said he isn't alone... how do you know that?"  
  
"I've seen things... come on, let's go."  
  
At this point Sora realized this guy in a cloak wasn't the same he met previously. This one was 'lighter', calmer and nicer. Maybe because of the fact that he actually told Sora something.  
  
When Sora got out of his house, the cloaked man was waiting next to a crappy gummi ship, and beside it was Mickey Mouse.  
  
"King Mickey...?" Sora yelled, recognizing the long-eared fella.  
  
"There's no time, Sora. Jump in, we'll tell you everything on the way."  
  
"Oh, ok..." Sora said, "Weren't you locked in Kingdom Hearts?"  
  
Mickey didn't answer. When everybody was on board, the cloaked man took off the ship. When they were already in space, he took off his hood. Sora got surprised he was actually Riku!  
  
"Riku!" Sora screamed.  
  
"Calm down, you. Yes, it's me."  
  
"So how did you guys get away of that place?"  
  
"It was tricky, if you wanna know." Mickey said. "It involved a nasty sense of localization and perception."  
  
"Or the ability of finding a good hide spot and being saved by the guys." Riku completed.  
  
"Guys? What guys?"  
  
"All of them use these black robes. It's their trademark, used to identify them."  
  
"I..." Sora wanted to mention the cloaked guy he met previously but he prefered to let this subject die. Now he wanted to see what he could do for the disappeared people.  
  
"Our plan, King Mickey?" Riku asked.  
  
"Let's rush to Disney Castle. I could use some squires."  
  
"You mean Goofy and Donald?" Sora asked.  
  
This question was answered by a nodding. Mickey seemed tired.  
  
"Then we'll look for his keyblade, right?" Riku asked Mickey.  
  
"Yes, that's right." then he opened his eyes "If there are four keyblades, we must bear at least two of them."  
  
"Wh...what? Four keyblades? Bear two of them? Hey, I got only one keyblade!" Sora said.  
  
Mickey quickly handed his keyblade. It had the exact same colors as Sora's but... they were inverted.  
  
"Oh, yeah, I saw you using this to lock the door..." Sora remembered. "But what about these other two?"  
  
"Oblivion and Oathkeeper. You don't have them, do you?"  
  
"I had them... but I lost their keychains!"  
  
"You're a hell of a disorganized guy, huh?" Riku said, then laughed.  
  
"Humph..." Sora laid down "It's so unfair. How can that stupid cloaked guy simply teleport and steal my keyblade and keychains?"  
  
"...Stupid... what?" Riku said. He was odd.  
  
"Yeah... there was this... cloaked guy who appeared when I was running in Disney Castle's garden. He teleported me back to Destiny Islands. And apparently took my keyblade."  
  
"Did you see his face?" Riku asked, then.  
  
"No"  
  
"It was Hirosh!" Mickey said, suddenly.  
  
"Hirosh?" Sora asked.  
  
"He's our Judas. He betrayed us, that's who Ansem brought along."  
  
After this talk, they didn't say anything else. The ship arrived at Disney Castle and Mickey went in to find his squires. Then Riku decides to tell Sora what happened to Kairi.  
  
"What, isn't she gone just like everyone else?"  
  
"She's a princess of heart, you forgot about that? She's gone but not to where everybody else is."  
  
"Ansem's castle... Hollow Bastion..."  
  
"Bingo. But first we got to get your keyblade back."  
  
"...And get this Hishori guy!"  
  
"Hirosh." Riku corrected.  
  
Mickey arrived at that moment followed by his fellow squires Goofy and Donald.  
  
"Hey-ya! I thought you had turned into dust!" Goofy said, when saw Sora.  
  
"Don't be a moron, you big palooka. The worse that could have happened was we finding Sora dead!" Donald said, angry.  
  
"Calm down you two. We got a important mission. We must find Sora's keyblade! And other two keychains, Oathkeeper and Oblivion." Mickey instructed "We could use some of Leon's help."  
  
"I think we should rush to Hollow Bastion. The keyblade has to be there." Riku suggested.  
  
"Ok, ok, Sora, what do you want to do?" Mickey asked Sora, then.  
  
"Uh, well... Let's go find Leon!"  
  
"You sure? Cuz we don't know where he is."  
  
"He must be at Traverse Town. He's been rebuilding some parts of it, before Ansem took over Hollow Bastion again." Goofy informed.  
  
"So this is it. We're off to Traverse Town."  
  
The group boarded the ship. So, the brotherhood was formed, and was waiting for Leon, a new member. Sora just didn't know that... they wouldn't reach Traverse Town easily.  
  
They've been travelling for two hours, when Mickey woke up from a unworried sleep and asked Riku how much did it take to finally reach Traverse Town.  
  
"Well, if you want my opinion, we all should be having tea with Leon by now. I don't know why it's taking so long. We're at a nice speed, 800 meters per hour."  
  
"Uhh, Goofy, Donald, have you brought Jiminy with you?"  
  
"Well, it depends on what you mean." Goofy then handed Mickey something that looked like a walkie-talkie.  
  
"Why, hello! Testing! Jiminy!" Goofy said to the device.  
  
"Hey, hey, what the hell do you want I was sleeping you know!!" a little voice sounded. It was Jiminy Cricket!  
  
"Why aren't you here?" Mickey asked.  
  
"I'm... uh... dealing with some business here. You see, after that journey with Sora, all the info I gathered had to be filed, you know, backup'ed." Jiminy was saying "I'm sorry but I'm filled with work!"  
  
"So that bug prefers filing instead of helping us with this engine that runs at 800 meters per hour but seems to be running at 1 meter per hour?" Riku said, angry.  
  
"Jiminy doesn't know much about gummi engines, y'know. Chip and Dale are the ones for the job." Goofy informed.  
  
"But they aren't here you big palooka!" Donald said.  
  
"Hmmm, but they are at the castle, with Jiminy. Mickey, ask Jiminy to call them!" Sora said.  
  
"Ok, ok. Hey, Jiminy! Jiminy Cricket!"  
  
...  
  
"What? I told you guys I'm busy."  
  
"Yes, yes, we know. Can you call Chip and Dale for us?"  
  
"And who are those?"  
  
Everyone looked at themselves puzzled.  
  
"Uh... they work in the castle." Mickey said. "The same castle as yours."  
  
"Huh. Where, exactly?"  
  
"Don't you have an info about them, you buggy bugger?!"  
  
"I haven't reached their info yet. I'm still thinking of why I can't rotate Minnie."  
  
"You... what?" Mickey said, scared.  
  
"Uh, nothing, nothing. I'm just in the beginning, I haven't reached their info yet."  
  
"So REACH IT!" everyone said, then.  
  
Some minutes after it, the little voices of Chip and Dale reached the ship. Mickey asked for instructions and everything seemed to be working fine.  
  
"What to do, now, that everything 'is working fine'?" Riku said, impatient.  
  
Sora looked trough the window and saw they were really close to a crazy-looking world.  
  
"Hey, guys! Look!" Sora said.  
  
At this moment, heartlesses magically appear in front of them. Yes, heartlesses, like the ones Sora used to defeat. 


	2. Chapter 2: Departurrance

At this moment, heartlesses magically appear in front of them. Yes, heartlesses, like the ones Sora used to defeat.  
  
"Withdraw, everyone!" Riku yelled, opening the gummi ship shaft.  
  
Everybody got off the ship without any trouble (although Donald got stuck at the door but Goofy quickly kicked him to help) and fell into the world they faced.  
  
The heartless destroyed the ship completely and engaged Mickey and the others into battle.  
  
"Our ship... you're going to pay, dumbasses!" Riku threats.  
  
"Leave that with me." Mickey says. He hands his keyblade and, among two spins and slashes, the heartlesses are gone. Mickey doesn't seem tired.  
  
"Wow, that was some good excibition." Riku says, without enthusiasm.  
  
"You try wielding a keyblade, I mean, without being possessed." Sora said then.  
  
"Not funny. Let's explore this place up. I smell trouble."  
  
"You can always smell trouble from a place you don't know." Mickey says, while walking. "We just have to find this place's governor and..."  
  
"...be hung up, fed to the lions, what?" Riku completes.  
  
"Just don't think like that. It's bad." Sora says.  
  
They reach a funny building. It's formed by wood all around it, and lots of plants around it, until the top. The windows were small and so was the door in front of them. A strange music was echoing, too.  
  
"So, what do we do? Do we come in?" Riku asks Mickey.  
  
"That's what we have to do." Mickey replies.  
  
"This looks like one of those crazy civilizations that kill any strangers!" Donald was freaking out, "I'm not going in!"  
  
"So stay there." Riku said. Donald was left behind.  
  
The four got in and Donald waited at the entrace.  
  
"Big... big fat palookas! They won't listen to me. We could just lurk around and maybe find a blasting gummi ship. But, oh, no, it's better to come in like a bunch of blasting invaders and be deheaded!" he was saying.  
  
Donald then finds a small gummi piece on the floor. It looked like one of the Navi Gummis he, Goofy and Sora found last year.  
  
When he got it, there was another one just a few feet ahead. When facing the whole way, it was an entire trail of gummi pieces.  
  
"Holy crap! I have to collect these!" Donald said, collecting all pieces quickly and noisily.  
  
When he was storing the very last piece in his pack, he decided to go inside that building and telling his friends, alive or dead, about the pieces. Or maybe sell them to the governor to free his friends. But he wouldn't have much time to think about that, at that time.  
  
It was a trap. A cage fell into him, locking the poor duck, surrounded by almost-unpenetrable trees.  
  
"Ooooh, I knew it was going to happen! Who's there? Who's theeeere?" Donald yelled.  
  
Meanwhile, Sora was examining each detail of that building, the inside was very beautiful. The people there used wood and plants in a great harmony, creating a very charming place. Riku was starting to get impatient.  
  
"This world must be empty as well."  
  
"Hey, guys, quiet! Listen..." Mickey said, making them all stop and listen. The sound looked like steps. And the steps were getting closer.  
  
"Let's all hide! Quick!" Mickey said, and eveybody obeyed.  
  
A funny-looking old man came into the room they were hiding and was holding a torch.  
  
"Is there anyone there?" the old man said. No answer.  
  
"Let's corner him." Riku said.  
  
"You crazy? What if he calls the guards, yawn!" Goofy argued.  
  
"Sora?" Mickey gives Sora the decision power.  
  
"Let's corner him!" Sora said, in low voice. "Goofy, you got your weapon?"  
  
"Oh yeah! I mean, if you call a shield a weapon."  
  
"Ok. Let's all scare him to death. Then we'll inquire for information."  
  
But they didn't even have time to scare the guy. In fact, the opposite happened. He scared them.  
  
Some shadows began to corner him until completely filling his body up. He was shadow-only, then.  
  
"It's a heartless! Engage!!" Mickey yelled.  
  
Riku handed his knife, Goofy, his shield, Mickey, his keyblade and Sora... kept watching them.  
  
"When I get my keyblade back... I'm gonna show them I'm not just an spectator. I... I BEAT RIKU ONCE. TWICE!!" he was yelling to himself.  
  
When the shadow had already dissipated, and Goofy was doing his victory dance, Riku concluded:  
  
"This is it. Every world is empty. But every world has heartlesses. We must rush to Hollow Bastion. Let's finish Ansem off and make everything back to normal."  
  
"You look like me, saying that. What makes you think that Ansem will be beaten AND that it will make all worlds go back to normal?" Sora said, puzzling them all.  
  
Meanwhile, the poor duck was still yelling, complaining, yelling and complaining.  
  
"That's it. I'm gonna die here. I'll dry to death. Nice, calm... and delaying!" he was saying.  
  
Then a shadow appeared. It wasn't a heartless but a real shadow, like the ones we get when we light something up. The person approached.  
  
"Donald! It was you?" the person said.  
  
"Quaaack! You moron!! WHY DID YOU LOCK ME UP???"  
  
"Sorry, sorry, I didn't know it was you..."  
  
Then a shadow appeared. It wasn't a heartless but a real shadow, like the ones we get when we light something up. The person approached.  
  
"Donald! It was you?" the person said.  
  
"Quaaack! You moron!! WHY DID YOU LOCK ME UP???"  
  
"Sorry, sorry, I didn't know it was you..."  
  
This person was Leon!  
  
"You squaack-bookle squackar!!! We were just looking for you! Why the waacka-baacka did you lock me up?" Donald was a bit more annoyed than unsual.  
  
"Calm down, calm down... CALM DOWN STUPID DUCK!!" Leon got pissed. "I didn't know it was you, I already said it. So tell me, are your friends here, as well?"  
  
"Yep. They went inside that building over there." Donald pointed the big construction Sora, Mickey, Goofy and Riku went in before.  
  
"Uh-oh... well... I guess Sora knows how to deal with heartlesses just fine. But... did you say Mickey? 'The' Mickey? The King?"  
  
"Oh, yeah. He's back, and is the only one who is really fighting. Oh, you see, Sora lost his keyblade, and his two most important keychains."  
  
"Sora... lost his keyblade?" Leon looked puzzled and scared, at the same time. "How... could this... be possible?" he stared at the sky. He didn't remember of unlocking Donald.  
  
"So stop blabba-wabba and unlock me up!" Donald began yelling again. "Let's just go meet up with them and then you can chat all you want." he was yelling while Leon was trying to untie the trap's ropes.  
  
"Here." he said, finally.  
  
Donald faced his regained freedom happily. But a few seconds later...  
  
"Why don't you just LOOK who you have locked up? I kept waiting for... what, ten minutes! I could have died! What if I didn't eat anything for uh, three years?"  
  
"If you haven't eaten anything in three years, it wouldn't be ten minutes which would make any difference. Now let's go." Leon said, then began to walk carefully, with his hands almost touching his gunblade.  
  
Meanwhile, Sora was asking Mickey how was it possible that old man becoming a heartless without any reason.  
  
"They don't need reasons, you know." Riku answered before Mickey. "Heartlesses could have been called Mindlesses as well."  
  
"Um, yeah, it's true. But even so, we still don't know what that old man was doing there, alone in this empty world." Mickey said.  
  
"Well, we don't know if it's empty, we haven't looked around yet, just this building." Goofy said.  
  
Then Donald came running, and before him came Leon.  
  
"Squaaack! I almost died! It was that squaack-bookle squackar! He locked me up and made me wait for, what, one hour!" Donald yelled.  
  
"It was ten minutes max, duck." Leon said, when finally reaching them.  
  
"Leon!" they welcomed him.   
  
"We were just looking for you! Then the engine broke and..." Sora was saying.  
  
"Yeah, I can imagine what happened. It happened to us too." Leon said, puzzling everyone.  
  
"Us... who?" they asked.  
  
"Me and the guys, Cloud, Cid and Aeris. We were separated after the engine blew up after we tried to speed it up. Me and Cid got here and we split up to find someone. Then I saw the heartlesses and got curious to see why they were here."  
  
"...And you tried to trap them and analyze them?" Donald tried to guess.  
  
"Exactly." Leon said.  
  
"But what about those gummies?" Donald said, showing the pieces.  
  
"Oh, those are fake." Leon said, frustrating everyone. "Heartlesses love shiny things. Like hearts."  
  
...  
  
"What the waacka-baacka is wrong with you? You're lost in a strange place, only with your barking friend, and you have the brilliant idea of making a trap?!" Donald was yelling again.  
  
"In case you didn't know, me and the guys used to make experiments with Heartlesses. It was a long time ago but I have a good memory. But let's focus on what we're gonna do, we got to find Cid."  
  
"Yes. Let's go." Sora said.  
  
They were leaving the building when Goofy said:  
  
"Uhh... hey... this place looks huge. Where are we gonna look first?"  
  
"Sora?" Mickey gave Sora the decision power again, that was making him nervous.  
  
"Let's go trought that jungle over there..." Sora pointed the place. "We've come from that other side..." he pointed the other stop then, "Let's try to get to the other side, where Cid may be."  
  
"Wise choice. Although..." Riku started.  
  
"Let's just go. We don't have time for this!" Donald said, he was still a bit angry.  
  
The group moved, then, to the jungle pointed by Sora.  
  
"Let's be ready for any heartless encounters." Mickey said, his keyblade was in hands.  
  
"Humph. They're all gonna face the same fate." Leon said, confident.  
  
Sora was still feeling useless, while everybody had their weapons, he was just an spectator.  
  
"But when I get my keyblade... I'm gonna show them..." he thought, "I'll kick all heartlesses' asses!".  
  
They finally reached the jungle's border. Now they were inside that cozy and scary outdoor cavern. The trees were scary as well, looked like they had eyes and mouthes, and they were all staring at them, planning something evil against them.  
  
"Yawn... when... are we going to get to the other side?" Goofy asked, a bit scared.  
  
"Stop complaining you big squaack-squackar! We're already tense in here!" Donald said. It was clear that he was the most terrified of them all.  
  
"Why don't we split up and..." Riku began.  
  
"No... that never works." Sora interrupted.  
  
"What? Why?" Riku asked.  
  
"Let's just... stay together! Something tells me that we must... stay together. Just..." Sora was saying.  
  
"'Something tells you'?" Riku asked, almost mocking him, "Come on, Sora, we got to find that guy Cid. If someone finds him, just give a signal."  
  
"What signal?" Goofy asked.  
  
Sora was no longer talking.  
  
"I don't know. Let's just yell or... I don't know..." Riku was saying.  
  
"Let's stay together." No, it wasn't Sora who said that. It was Mickey.  
  
"Uh? You too think that?" Riku asked.  
  
"Of course. Anyone with a bit of counciousness would think that. This is a dangerous and deep jungle. We can't take risks." Mickey stated.  
  
"Hmm, very well, then. Let's stay together." Riku said, and the group moved.  
  
"Thanks, Mickey. He wouldn't listen, you saw it." Sora said.  
  
"You're welcome, fella."  
  
They walked for three hours and some minutes. Donald had already complained enough and was voiceless. They finally reached the jungle border.  
  
"Whoooo-hooo! Finally!" Goofy celebrated, along with the others.  
  
That's when they realize someone was staring at them. It was... a Darkside!  
  
"WHOA!" Sora screamed.  
  
The shadowy creature quickly began cyrcling around them, but then quickly Mickey jumped to it and began slashing it with his keyblade. Riku tried to attack it too but his knife made no damage against the huge shadow.  
  
The darkside raised its hand, then, and a black ball began to grow above it.  
  
"Hide! Hide, it's gonna blow!" Mickey yelled.  
  
"Again... I'm... useless..., I'm watching, I'm hiding, I'm doing nothing!" Sora was thinking again.  
  
We was angry, he couldn't stand that regection anymore.  
  
"I must do something! I MUST!" he said, when jumping in front of Mickey, trying to stop the black ball with his bare fists.  
  
"Sora, NO!" Mickey said...  
  
For Sora, then, everything became dark. There was darkness all over.  
  
"There will be times you have to fight. Keep your light burning strong." a voice echoed in Sora's head.  
  
"Even in the deepest darkness, there will always be a light to guide you. Believe in the light, and the darkness will never defeat you. Your heart will shine with its power and push the darkness away." another voice echoed, then.  
  
"What... is happening?" Sora asked himself.  
  
He woke up after some minutes. He wasn't with his friends. He was alone. He wasn't at the jungle anymore, it seemed that he had already passed the border.  
  
"MICKEEEEEEEY! RIKUUUUUUU!" he called, but no one answered. "Great... just great..." he was becoming impatient.  
  
He got up and looked at the ways that remained. The world had a huge mountain that could be viewed completely from where Sora was.  
  
Sora decided to go to a near meadow he spotted when he woke up.  
  
Walking around it made Sora reflect about what he did.  
  
"I was an idiot... how could I stop that using only my hands?" he then remembered how useless he's been feeling since he lost his keyblade.  
  
Suddenly all the colorness and beautiness of the meadow become dark and hazy. Sora, then, sees Riku approaching him.  
  
"Riku!" Sora calls him.  
  
"The door has opened..." he was saying, he looked numb.  
  
"We can't let fear stop us... I'm... I'M NOT AFRAID OF DARKNESS!" Riku yells, handing Sora's old Kingdom Key!  
  
"That's my keyblade!" Sora says.  
  
Riku didn't answer. He tried to attack Sora but he quickly avoided the slashing, and ran away.  
  
"What is going on, Riku?" he was asking while running. "Why are you like this again?"  
  
Then Sora got tired of so much running, and in front of him was Leon. He looked as numb as Riku. He was with his gunblade in hand.  
  
"Come with us. There's nothing to fear." he said.  
  
"Wh-what? What's wrong with you guys?" Sora was getting frightened.  
  
"Come on, Sora!" a voice echoed behind him. It was Mickey, and, guess, he was the one who was worse-looking.  
  
"Let's close this door... for good..." he said.  
  
"What door, Mickey?" Sora asked.  
  
"The door... of light... it must be closed! It's..." Mickey stopped, then.  
  
Everything turned black again. Sora was back at the meadow, but there was something in his feet. The Keyblade!  
  
"Keyblade... Keyblade..." a voice was echoing and Sora finally opened his eyes.  
  
"MY KEYBLADE!" he screamed, and quickly got it and examined it.  
  
Meanwhile, in a place very, very, very far from there, a bell was ringing. Its ringing made a blonde kid run faster. He was wearing a backpack and looked nervous.  
  
"Maran! You forgot your prisms!" someone was yelling at him.  
  
"I have plenty here. Thanks!" Maran said, running even faster.  
  
He reaches a clocktower and comes in. The stairs are narrow and old but he jumps two or three floors to get to the top quickly.  
  
There is a girl sitting at the top of the clocktower, above from the clock itself. She was beautiful, she had a long black hair and blue eyes. Looked short for her age.  
  
"What took you so long? I was almost leaving." she said.  
  
"Sorry, but I..." Maran was afraid of telling her what took him so long. He's been having serious headaches these days. But he doesn't want to tell his friend that, because if he do she will make this a big deal and tell him to look for a doctor.  
  
"You... what?" she said.  
  
"Nothing. Here are the prisms..." he took some shiny stones of his backpack.  
  
"Ok..." she got the stones and examined them. "You really thing these are the real stuff?"  
  
"I don't know, Rina, you're the one who can tell the differences."  
  
"Nowadays it's too hard to find an autentic prism laying around. Ok, ok, this is nice but that's not why I called you up here."  
  
"So why?"  
  
"Come here." she took him inside the clocktower, where the stairs were. She opened a door there, somehow she had the key.  
  
"This is for you. I found it at the town's border." she pointed it. It was...  
  
"This is for you. I found it at the town's border." she pointed it. It was a Keyblade!  
  
"Whoa! Wh-why would I need such a big key?"  
  
Rina looked thoughtfully to Maran.  
  
"A man asked me to give this to you. Yesterday night. He was wearing a spooky dark cloak, I couldn't see his face. I thought he was going to mug me but no, he handed me a case and this key was inside."  
  
Maran took the Keyblade and noticed something odd. Pressing it between his hands, he found out it wasn't one Keyblade, but two, attached to each other.  
  
"Whoosh! They're two!" he said, amused.  
  
"I wonder why you would need two. In fact, I don't even know why you would need it at all."  
  
"Maybe to open a door? A big door?" Maran remembered some weird dreams he's had. "Or maybe to lock a big door..."  
  
"Well that's it. What are you going to do? Huh?"  
  
"Well, I am... going to sell them." Rina got scared after hearing that.  
  
"What? You crazy? Don't you feel that these things are special, or something?" she argued. "You're selling those only under my dead body."  
  
"Ok, ok, I got it. So what do you suggest?"  
  
"Let's look for this man. I met him around the INN, maybe he's staying there."  
  
"So let's go! I'll keep them here, nobody ever comes here, anyway."  
  
"Ok, let's go!" Rina said, pulling Maran.  
  
They lived at Feartia Town, a big and busy town with lots of buildings and houses. However, they lived at the suburb, and the clocktower was the highest they could get.  
  
Maran and Rina ran very fast to the INN. In fact, running fast was what they did best, they were always in a rush. Feartia was a very fast-moving city, and its citizens seemed to be like that, too.  
  
"Here we are! Now stay in here while I ask if there was anyone suspicious there." Maran said, making Rina nervous.  
  
"Why? You think the recepcionist is going to bite me or something? I'm going with you, I'm going to the bottom of this along with you." she said, once again pulling him.  
  
Thirty seconds later they were leaving the hotel. 'No, nobody suspicious, I think. Now, leave, if you're not going to rent a room.' the robot-like guy at the counter said.  
  
"What are we gonna do?" Maran asked.  
  
"Don't know. Ahhh, well, I think I'll call it a day. Gotta sleep a lot, tomorrow is going to be a full day at the farm." she said, leaving.  
  
"Hey, uh, Rina!"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Do you remember anything else about that guy? The guy who gave you the keys?"  
  
"Uhhh... he was... short. Very short. Even I was taller than him. Yeah, that's it. See ya!" she said.  
  
That night, Maran didn't dream the same things he's been dreaming. He dreamed about himself, holding those two keyblades. The darker one and the lighter one. He was in a arena-like place, surrounded by fire.  
  
He woke up after hearing someone calling his name. It was there. The short cloaked man, next to his bed.  
  
"Who are you? What are you doing here? Does... does this have something to do with... those keys?" Maran asked, scared.  
  
The cloaked figure took off its hood and its face was visible. It had long ears and a ponty nose. It was Mickey.  
  
Meanwhile, there was Sora, wielding his old Keyblade, still not believing he'd got it back.  
  
"Now I just have to find the guys. They will see, now, how I fight!"  
  
Sora continued his way trought the meadow. It seemed neverending, but it was beautiful too, this beauty distracted Sora for some miles. 


	3. Chapter 3: Another side

There was that cloaked man again. He and Sora stared at each other for some seconds. Hard-to-pass seconds.  
  
Sora examined that figure completely, making sure that man wasn't carrying any weapons. But he wasn't brave enough to engage a battle with that.  
  
Meanwhile, there was Maran, staring at that Mickey-like figure who somehow appeared in his room.  
  
"Wh-what do y-you want?" he said, trembling.  
  
The cloaked shorty pointed at the weapon it was carrying. It was a Keyblade, with the same colors as Sora's, but inverted.  
  
"Y-you want the keys? I don't have them... uh..."  
  
It then approached the bed, threatning Maran.  
  
"I left it at the clocktower! I didn't bring it home!!" Maran was saying, half screaming, half crying.  
  
The figure pointed at the clocktower thought the window.  
  
"You... you want me to go there get it? You crazy? It's dark and rainy out there!"  
  
Again, it approached even more the bed, making Maran even more nervous.  
  
"All right, all right. I'll go! Just... let me dress up."  
  
Maran has thought of calling Rina to help him out but decided not to do it. The cloaked short figure was next to him, any different turn would mean something bad.  
  
When they finally reached the clocktower, Maran squeezed his clothes in order to dry them. The cloaked guy got only his cloak wet.  
  
While climbing the stairs, Maran was thinking, maybe that guy was the one who gave Rina those keys. Maybe he wanted them back.  
  
"What the hell, if he wants them back, may he have them..." he thought. "I won't be in the way."  
  
Then, there was Maran, in front of the door where he and Rina had locked the keys. He didn't bring the key, it was with Rina, and he only remembered of that at that time.  
  
"I'll open it." the guy said. It was the first words Maran heard him say.  
  
A dark ray came out of the guy's key and reached the door's keyhole. A sound was heard and the door was opened.  
  
The cloaked guy came in firstly and touched the keys. Maran was getting some crazy ideas, was wanting to attack that cloaked guy from the back and run away with the keys.  
  
Why would the guy want the keys? Because they were important, somehow, and Maran wouldn't let him just come over and steal his treasure. It was Rina who gave them to him.  
  
The cloaked guy fell in the floor after a kick right in his back. While he was uncouncious, Maran entered the room, trembling, and got the keys, then ran like the wind.  
  
While running lots of things were passing throught his head. Rina... the keys... that guy... why did he want his keys? He already had his key, which he used to open the door.  
  
Maran was now fearing that guy would chase him for his entire life, until getting the keys back. But Maran felt that he had to protect those keys, no matter what. He decided to go to Rina's house.  
  
It was still raining. The rain seemed to be like sharp cissors falling from the dark sky. Maran reached Rina's house after running a lot and turning wrong sides sometimes.  
  
"RINA! RIIINAA!" he yelled. Rina lived with her brother, Tom, but he was away of town.  
  
After calling her some more times, she appeared at the window of her room, in the second floor.  
  
"Maran? Is that you?" he asked.  
  
"Yes! Please let me come in!" Maran asked her.  
  
Maran came inside and Rina handed him a tower which he could use to dry himself.  
  
"Now tell me, what's wrong?"  
  
"That cloaked guy who gave you the keys, I think it's the same one who's came to my house and told me to give him his keys back! I was at the clocktower with him a few minutes ago!"  
  
"Oh, my... but how did you escape?"  
  
"I kicked him in the back and he fell on the floor. I got the keys and escaped. I've been running till I reached your house."  
  
"Well, you think he's gonna find you? He must be a maniac or something, we gotta tell the police."  
  
Maran was examining Rina's house while she was speaking. He's never been there, before. Her brother, Tom, didn't like the idea of Rina being visited by a boy so they had to meet in secret.  
  
While examining Maran noticed a shadow on the window. It had big ears and a ponty nose. It was the cloaked guy.  
  
Maran looked at the shadow again.  
  
"I'll fight it." he said.  
  
"What? How? You're gonna kick his back again?"  
  
"No. These keys... they look like a sort of... weapon... they have blades..."  
  
"But can you handle two of them at the same time?"  
  
"It's harder but will get us rid of him." he said, walking to the door. He was trembling even more.  
  
"This is it..." he was saying to himself. "Now I'm gonna see if these are worth any effort to keep them." then he opened the door.  
  
The cloaked guy seemed to know he was approaching the door because he was wating patiently at the front door. He pointed to the keys.  
  
"You want these?" Maran asked.  
  
He nodded, saying yes.  
  
"So get them..." Maran said, charging both keys towards the cloaked guy. He avoided the attack and approached the street.  
  
"Come here! I'll... defend these keys!"  
  
Then he handed his key and seemed ready to battle.  
  
"You are going to defy a natural selection..." the cloaked guy said, surprising Maran. "Give me the keys."  
  
"No!"  
  
"Why do you protect them?"  
  
"...I don't know, I just feel like I must protect these keys."  
  
"You 'feel like you must'. That just shows us how futile you are."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You are following orders given by no one. You are no one."  
  
"...I may be no one... but still, I... I'll protect these keys, so if you want them, come here get them!"  
  
"Yes, I will. And I will have to punish you after that."  
  
Maran felt that he really shouldn't be arguing with that guy. He felt that he should just give him the keys back and go home. But no, he still 'felt like he had to' protect the keys.  
  
So they engaged battle.  
  
Hollow Bastion was a creepy place. Once it was a nice beautiful castle, with green fields around and birds singing. It became a helf-mechanized castle then, when the ruler of its world got obsessed by his discoveries. Now it was completely mechanized. Sora has already been there, that's where he saved Kairi once, and turned into a heartless for the first time. But Kairi's love healed him and made him a human again.  
  
Ansem returned, but not alone. That's what Riku told Sora. Ansem did return accompanied but this company wasn't what saved him. In fact, he saved his company.  
  
"Hirosh. Where's Hirosh?" Ansem, dressed in a red cloak with a blindfold, said.  
  
"I don't know." a eerie-faced man in a black cloak replied. "He said he was going to get the Keyblade back."  
  
"Which one?"  
  
"The one."  
  
Meanwhile...  
  
Sora examined that figure completely, making sure that man wasn't carrying any weapons. But he wasn't brave enough to engage a battle with that.  
  
Anyway, he was wrong. The cloaked man took off his hood and handed a thin long sword.  
  
"My name is Hirosh. And you are going to die."  
  
"Wh... what do you want? You want my Keyblade?"  
  
"Yes, but I presume you will not give it up easily so I am saving time. Prepare to die, Keyblade master."  
  
Hirosh began approaching Sora with his sword in hand. Sora decided to fight him rather than run away. He handed his Keyblade and reunited all the strenght that made him move thirteen months ago, when he fought hungreds of Heartlesses.  
  
A spark. A sphere of light. And a hypnotic gaze. Those were the abilities Hirosh seemed to bear, but Sora resisted them all, although his arm began to bleed after the sphere of light hit it.   
  
Sora began aiming his sword, not his arm. It would be one less weapon he'd have to keep avoiding. The attempts were fail but he managed to make Hirosh pretty tired.  
  
"Why..." Hirosh said while fighting Sora.  
  
...  
  
"Why fighting for something that does not belong to you?"  
  
...  
  
"This key has its door. And you will not be able to open it!" Hirosh yelled. He created a huge fire wall all around them. Sora was surrounded, the walls were becoming closer and closer to him.  
  
Hirosh jumped out of the flaming circle and Sora went into panic state.  
  
"Give up, why worrying about something that does not concern you?"  
  
"... ... ...I am the Keyblade master" Sora said, with low eyes. "And I'm dying defending my Key!"  
  
...  
  
...  
  
The fire was almost three inches away from Sora.  
  
...  
  
...  
  
Two inches...  
  
...  
  
...  
  
One inch... Sora closed his eyes.  
  
...  
  
...  
  
...  
  
"Fly, Sora! Just believe, and you can do it!" ...a voice...  
  
...  
  
When Sora opened his eyes, he was floating in midair. He spotted Hirosh on the floor, watching, puzzled, his fly.  
  
"...Peter Pan." Sora remembered. "Thank you... wherever you are!" he said. "Now I got some business to take care of!" Sora holded his Keyblade and charged upon Hirosh, who was in defensive position.  
  
A spark. A sphere of light. And a hypnotic gaze. Those were the abilities he had left, now, once his sword had been broken as a result of Sora's charge attack.  
  
Soon, thanks to the hability Sora had with flying, he managed to take over Hirosh's abilities and make him go down to his knees.   
  
"Now, tell me..." Sora began. "Who the hell are you, anyway? Why do you want my Keyblade?"  
  
Hirosh tried to get up but couldn't do it. He stared at the ground.  
  
"I already told you. This key has its door. And you will not be able to open it!"  
  
"And how can you know that?"  
  
"Whaa-?"  
  
Sora was oddly brave that time.  
  
"Ansem feared by light. This light was what I used to close Kingdom Hearts."  
  
"You are forgetting..."  
  
"Forgetting what?"  
  
"There are always two sides. Like a coin. Truth and lie. Light and darkness. They oppose but one would be nothing without the other."  
  
...  
  
"The same applies to your key."  
  
"So, you're saying there's another Key which opposes to mine?"  
  
"Yes. And we hold it. We just need yours."  
  
"And what will you do, then?"  
  
"I will not tell you."  
  
Sora approached him.  
  
"Yes, you will."  
  
"Do not come over thinking you possesed me." then he gets up. "You are nothing. The keyblade chose you but your role is to return it to its people. Us."  
  
"You're lying! If it chose me, it must stay with me!"  
  
"Bwhahahaha! You are so naive, little one. I really wanted to treat you like garbage but I can't." he began walking away. "Go find your friends. If you can."  
  
Sora tried to follow him but he, somehow, disappeared among the woods.  
  
"Now what am I going to do?"  
  
"Hey, ya! What the heck your doing therr?" someone yelled behind Sora. It was Cid.  
  
"Cid! I... we... were looking for you where were you?"  
  
"Lost among those goddamn woods. Couldn't find a thing. Not even my airship's wreckage."  
  
"I was with Leon. He's been looking for you."  
  
"Leon? You found Leon? Good, where?"  
  
"I..." Sora looked back. "I'm not sure... I've been numb..."  
  
"So let's go trough this jungle." Cid said, walking away.  
  
"Uh... yes... jungle... I remember that." Sora said, following Cid.  
  
Meanwhile...  
  
"You failed?"  
  
"...No. I got all info I needed."  
  
"Except for the Key."  
  
"I got enough info to catch the boy. If we catch the boy, we catch the Key along, right?"  
  
"Have you told this to the boss, yet?"  
  
"No. And I will not. I will let him see only the results."  
  
"What if you fail?"  
  
"I won't."  
  
Meanwhile...  
  
"Wake up! Gawrsh, wake up!!" Goofy was saying, nervously.  
  
"Squaaaaaaack!!" Donald got scared. "What the waacka-baacka do you want?"  
  
"Ohwie, I can't find the King."  
  
Mickey was missing.  
  
"Leon! Leon! Leeeeeeeeooooooon!" Donald yelled, nervously, too.  
  
"Wh-what? Duck?" Leon said after waking up. They all were, oddly, asleep before Donald being the first to wake up.  
  
"What happened?" Leon asked.  
  
"The King is gone! And we were all asleep, why was that???"  
  
Leon got up.  
  
"I... don't know... I don't remember anything..." he began to think and really didn't remember how they ended up there, asleep.  
  
"Sora's missing too." Goofy said.  
  
"Um, yeah, I noticed. Maybe he and Mickey went somewhere."  
  
"Huh." Donald said. "And why wouldn't they tell us?"  
  
"I don't know. Come on, let's look for them."  
  
As Leon, Goofy and Donald walked away, Mickey was hiding in a tree near them. It seemed that there was something with him.  
  
"Playing around non-existent fields. Those are to get lost." something said it next to Mickey. It was the Cheshire Cat. "What are you waiting for, Mr. Big Shot?"  
  
"I am waiting for them to leave. I'll need you after this."  
  
"Why would your excellency need a stupid cat like me?"  
  
"You'll see." Mickey sounded odd.  
  
They jumped off and looked around.  
  
"There. Now, I need you to look for Sora. You remember him, don't you?"  
  
"Looking for a lost person..." the cat said, walking around, with only his eyes visible. "...Difficult task for untrained eyes. But mine aren't. See." his eyes began to glow.  
  
"Uh, yes. So, please, I need you to look for him while... I do something else."  
  
"Too many secrets you bear. A reason I see not..."  
  
"I'm just asking you to look for him, alright?" Mickey said, walking away.  
  
"Tears shall fall. Bodies too. Train-lili-lain woo-len, train-lili-lain woo-len... train-lili-lain..." the cat began to walk away till he got completely invisible.  
  
"Now I have to find the... door... and find the in-between one... the binding Key..." Mickey was saying, then looked around. "But where can I find a vehicle?" 


	4. Chapter 4: The third side

Very far from there, Hirosh lit a candle. Ansem came in, then.  
  
"Very clever acting, there." Ansem said.  
  
"Huh. The kid really almost ripped me off. Did you see him flying over there? I did not know he could do that."  
  
"These light-hearted seem to bear lots of abilities but they only have their pride and honor. Two meaningless factors, truly."  
  
"So what is next?"  
  
"We haven't ended this part yet. A friend is doing me a favor, currently, I'm waiting for him."  
  
"Could it be..."  
  
"Yes. The Oathkeeper and the Oblivion. Darn, I wasn't expecting those to be so important." Ansem walked to the room's door. "You're not coming back to Sora. I'll take care of him myself."  
  
Hirosh looked at Ansem with his eyes full of anger.  
  
"You think I am going to sit here while you 'defend' me? I am fighting him back. I will do this how many times it takes."  
  
"Hirosh, please. I've got another job for you. Come here."  
  
Ansem took Hirosh to the bottom of the castle. After a lot of lift-switching and moving, they reached an old-fashioned door in the floor of the basement.  
  
"So?" Hirosh said.  
  
"This is the door to the in-between. The King is looking for it, I presume. Guard it with your life."  
  
"But this is not my job."  
  
"We're on an emergency situation, haven't you noticed yet, Hirosh? Nobody is really doing their jobs, I wasn't supposed to be telling you to do this."  
  
"I will guard this place, but I demand my part."  
  
"You will have your part, like we planned previously."  
  
"So you may rest in peace, this place is guarded. May I know how we are going to open this door?"  
  
"We need all keys from this dimension. You see? Two keyholes..." Ansem pointed at the pair of keyholes. "I still don't know what's beyond this door so we may need other keys."  
  
"Hm. Well, go. I am guarding this place."  
  
"Yes, I know. I trust you, Hirosh. I really do. Since the old times, eh." Ansem said, walking away to the lift.  
  
Meanwhile, Maran was still fighting the Mickey-ish cloaked guy, in the rain. Rina had already tried to knock out the opponent with some barrels but it hurt Maran instead. But he was standing the fight pretty well for a two-keybladed starter.  
  
"The keys... give me... the keys..." the cloaked figure was repeating. "They don't belong to you!" he slashes Maran's arm, he falls on the floor.  
  
"I'll ask you one more time. Give me the Keys!"  
  
Maran looked at him, with sorrow. Then, surprising his opponent, he quickly gets up and stabs the cloaked guy in the heart, with the Oathkeeper Keyblade. They looked at each other for some seconds.  
  
"You... can't... eliminate me..." he gets the key and moves it away. "Not... with this."  
  
"I don't understand!" Maran says, frustrated.  
  
At this point, Rina was watching everything from the front door.  
  
"Do you fight darkness with light?"  
  
"...Yes."  
  
"So that shows you know something, but not everything. I am not darkness. Neither light."  
  
"..."  
  
"And it appears that you're the same as me. We have the freedom of choosing sides. You don't need to bear light all the time."  
  
"Why would I want that?"  
  
The cloaked man approaches Maran.  
  
"Because then you'd get everything you ever wanted. Omnipresence, omnipower, all these which start with 'omni'."  
  
"You're... crazy..."  
  
"Yes, maybe I am. But don't forget... we are the same."  
  
He begins to walk away.  
  
"You're crazy! There's no way we're the same!"  
  
"And there are other two in the other side who opposes to us, so we better unite and meet them. Then get their keys."  
  
"There are other keys?"  
  
"Yes. Three more. One with my equivalent, other with your equivalent... and another one... in the in-between dimension..."  
  
"In-between dimension?"  
  
"I must go. Think about this." he disappeared, surrounded by shadows.  
  
Maran looked at the spot the cloaked guy was for some minutes. Rina came closer to him.  
  
"Is everything all right? We gotta take care of your arm." Rina said, kindly.  
  
He wasn't speaking. Rina took care of his arm and gave him a cup of tea.  
  
"Now tell me who was that guy?"  
  
"..."  
  
"Maran?"  
  
"I... must go..." Maran said, rushing to the doorway.  
  
"Where are you going? It's almost five in the morning, you gotta sleep..."  
  
"Sorry Rina but I must go." Maran said, coldly. He wanted to know more about that enemy. Or what if he wasn't the enemy? What if he was really the same as him?  
  
Rina ran to meet Maran on the street.  
  
"Please, tell me, Maran! I'm worried..."  
  
Maran, then, told her everything he and the cloaked guy talked. All that about they being the same and about their other two equivalents, and the in-between one.  
  
Rina stared at Maran a bit and then placed her finger on her mouth.  
  
"Hmmmm... But do you really believe you two are the same?"  
  
"Not the same. But he has a Key, too."  
  
...  
  
"Uh... Maran, do you remember that story you told me about? The one about when you was found?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Maran was found when he was still a baby by an old lady. He calls this lady his 'grandma' but he knows she's not his relative. She still lives with him but she's kind of old to take care of him.  
  
Anyway, he was found in the city's train station, in a basket with a letter. In this letter was written these exact words: "This is one of the darkness pair members. Find the other. Find the light pair. Reach the in-between."  
  
What shocked Maran most was that the cloaked guy talked about light, darkness, pair, in-between, just like in his letter.  
  
"So you've noticed..."  
  
"Yes. I'm going to find this guy. I need to find him."  
  
"Wait, you don't know where he went to, how are you gonna look for him?"  
  
Maran was getting away.  
  
"I don't know. I just... need to look for him."  
  
Rina began following Maran but then he ran so fast that she couldn't stick with him anymore. She fell to her knees and began to cry.  
  
Meanwhile, Sora was still as numb as someone who sleeps awake. Cid, sometimes, had to slap his back for him to 'wake up'.  
  
Sora was kind of floating on his mind. Sometimes he saw some flashes, he found himself back on Destiny Island, fooling around with Kairi and Riku. Then he'd go back and find himself seeing Mickey and the others fighting and he being the only one watching.  
  
"Hey, kid. HEY!" Cid yelled one more time.  
  
"Whoa! Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine..."  
  
"What's up with ya? You've been smoking somthin?"  
  
"What? No, no, of course not! I'm just... tired..."  
  
"You wanna take a break? You lucky cuz I'm tired too."  
  
"Really? Well, so let's take a break."  
  
"By the way, pothead..."  
  
"Hey!"  
  
"Don't get out of here. You know, during the night. If ya see something odd, wake me up, right?"  
  
"Uh-uh."  
  
Cid took a tent and a fire.  
  
"You pothead may sleep in the tent. I'll sleep outside."  
  
Sora wasn't even listening. He was already asleep.  
  
"Well, screw it." Cid lied down and closed his eyes.  
  
...  
  
...  
  
"SORA!" a voice echoed on Sora's head. It was Kairi's!  
  
Sora woke up quickly and looked around. The place was filled with shadows. He handed his keyblade and tried to move the creatures away but that was nothing. A huge darkside was coming on his way.  
  
"Whaaaaaaaaaaaa!!" Sora got scared, then handed his keyblade.  
  
Sora aimed for its arms, which were charging a big black ball, like before.  
  
While he was fighting, a weird music began to play, coming from the forest. A cat appeared. It was the Cheshire Cat.  
  
"Oh, oh, oh. Not a good time to appear, I see." he sat on one of the tree's twigs and waited, while his body and eyes disappeared.  
  
"Wh...mmm..." Cid was mumbling something, then finally woke up. "Holy crap what the hell is going on in here?" he yelled.  
  
Sora was too busy to answer. The Cheshire Cat appeared on Cid's shoulder, scaring him.  
  
"Who're you?"  
  
"Who am I. The question. The lack of response, the answer."  
  
"Wh-what??"  
  
Sora was getting tired and the darkside seemed to be almost finishing its dark ball.  
  
"Help the kid. He'll fall."  
  
"F-fall? He's gonna lose, ya say?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Cid rushed to the darkside and tried punching it, in vain.  
  
"Crap! I can't hit this thing!" he complained. "Come on, stupid cat, tell me how to defeat it!"  
  
"You do not need to defeat it to save your friend."  
  
...  
  
"What?"  
  
Sora fell on the floor. His breathing was awesomely fast. He didn't have enough strenght to get up, anymore.  
  
Meanwhile, at Hollow Bastion...  
  
"Ansem... Ansem!" Hirosh was calling.  
  
"Yes, Hirosh? You really shouldn't have left the gate."  
  
"It's... something... there...! It opened very fast and something threw me against the wall. I've been crawling till here."  
  
"It... opened up?? Hah! It must mean that... there's a guardian there. We must fight it."  
  
"Wh-what? A guardian? Why the hell would that gate have a guardian?"  
  
"It's the gate to the in-between dimension, Hirosh. This guardian was conjured by whom divided the dimensions. But don't worry, fighting it won't be difficult. Let's summon our companions..." Ansem said, leaving the room.  
  
"Wait, Ansem!"  
  
"What, Hirosh?"  
  
"I... I was thrown against the wall by that thing. It's amazingly strong, I tell you."  
  
"You don't need to worry, Hirosh, sonny. Everything, I say, everything will go on as we previsouly planned. You just have to... calm down, Hirosh, I've never seen you this nervous."  
  
"It's just that... I am realist, Ansem..."  
  
"Yes, yes, and I am aware of the situation. See the difference? Now let me go call our brothers."  
  
"Ansem, please..." Hirosh tried to call him but that was in vain, Ansem was already in the lift stop.  
  
A roar.  
  
Hirosh looked trought the window and saw... it was the guardian who had injured him.  
  
"What the... how did this thing come up here?" he asked himself.  
  
Then he left the room and quickly took a lift that would take him to the vessel stop.  
  
The guardian was huge, it resembled a dragon but had some human parts, that fit a golden armor. It also had a silver sword in hands, a very long and thick one.   
  
It had no eyes, it seemed, only half of its head could be entirely seen and even so, if it had eyes they could be spotted after a few seconds of staring. A no-eyed giant dragon warrior.  
  
Maran was at the train station, very far from where that guardian was roaring. He's been there for two hours, wandering around the station. This drew the attention of the manager, who approached him.  
  
"You looking for someone, kid?" he asked, surprising Maran.  
  
"Um... no, I'm just... uh... waiting for someone." he lied.  
  
"Well, the station will close within one hour, and the last train is almost leaving. Unless you made this place a meeting point only, you should try coming back tomorrow."  
  
"May I ask you a question?"  
  
"Bring it on, kid."  
  
"Have you seen a... short guy with a black cloak around here... latey?"  
  
"Hmmm... oh, yeah, how could I forget of that! He caused a big commotion, he took the previous train."  
  
"Where to?"  
  
"Astral Canyon, deep north."  
  
"Oww... how much time till the next train which goes there?"  
  
"Hah, twenty-three hours and some minutes."  
  
"What??"  
  
"Because of the troubled roads, we send only one trian per day to Astral Canyon. It's been a thieves' hideout these days, it's almost impossible to reach it without a, how can I say, strong and resistant vehicle like a train."  
  
"Damn..." Maran sat on the bench, frustated. "Isn't there anything I can do to go to this place... today?"  
  
"I don't think so, kid. Sorry."  
  
The manager left Maran alone in his frustation and went to help an old lady that was trying to stuff all her cats into a big bag.  
  
"Man... what do I do now?"  
  
Meanwhile, there was Donald, Goofy and Leon, still lost. They stopped for a break one hour ago but Donald was already demanding another one.  
  
"We've... we've... we've been wal... walking for... ages..." Donald was slurring. "Can't... we... stop... ag... again?"  
  
"Listen, if we don't find Sora and Mickey, these heartlesses will end up finding us and who knows what's gonna happen." Leon said.  
  
"We can take care of these bummers!" Donald said, bravely. "I helped Sora a lot when the worlds got infected by heartlesses."  
  
"Uh, only you?" Goofy said.  
  
"Ok, ok, me and the goof-snors there, too."  
  
A scream, coming from very near. Running, came Cid.  
  
"Cid!" Leon yelled, surprised of finding his friend.  
  
"There's no time, Leon, the lil' mate's in trouble! Come on!  
  
Leon, Donald and Goofy followed Cid to the spot where Sora was. He was floating in the air, it seemed that the Darkside was holding him.  
  
"SORA!" they yelled.  
  
"Ok, we're gonna save him." Donald said, handing his staff. "Fiiiiree!" he threw a fire ball at the darkside and it seemed injured but not enough.  
  
"The word is physical attack!" Cid said, then Leon and Goofy engaged the Darkside with their weapons.  
  
"You, duck, your concern is healing!" Cid ordened.  
  
"Wh-what the hell..." Donald said. "Ok, then, but I'll be the best healer you guys ever had!"  
  
Goofy and Leon took care of the hands and Cid kept fighting the feet. The Darkside seemed to be in pain, each time more injuried.  
  
Sora, then, screamed. He seemed in pain, too.  
  
"Do you think that..." Leon said.  
  
"...He's feeling the pain, too? That doesn't make sense." Cid said, then.  
  
...  
  
"Light..." Leon said. "We must fight the Darkside with light. It won't hurt Sora."  
  
"DUCK! HEALING! ON THE DARKSIDE! NOW!" Cid ordened.  
  
"Healing? The Darkside? You nuts?" Donald protested.  
  
"Do as I say! It'll work! Don't forget to... uh... have good thoughts on your mind, heart, whatever."  
  
Donald did so. He conjured a healing wind of Curaga. Then he repeated the spell, to make sure. After receiving the second healing, the Darkside began to become clearer and clearer, until it got completely white. After that, it exploded. Millions of small white sparks fell from the sky.  
  
Sora slowly got to the ground and fell to his knees. Someone else was also coming down. It was something huge, that resembled a dragon but had some human parts, which fit a golden armor. It also had a silver sword in hands, a very long and thick one.   
  
It had no eyes, it seemed, only half of its head could be entirely seen and even so, if it had eyes they could be spotted after a few seconds of staring. A no-eyed giant dragon warrior. The guardian.  
  
"Whoa!! What's that?" Cid yelled, after seeing the huge dragon-warrior on the sky. "What the hell is that? Hey, hey, kid! Watch out!"  
  
Sora was pretty near the guardian, and it tried to reach Sora with its sword.  
  
"Donald, come on, do something, you're the only one here with long range." Goofy said.  
  
"Oh, I know, I was just... figuring out what to do. What the hell." Donald used the Aeroga spell, the protective and offensive magic, on Sora.   
  
The spinning wind of Aeroga began to surround Sora, protecting him from further attacks, and hurting the enemy when attacks are tried to be made.  
  
Sora, then, opened his eyes, slowly.  
  
"SORA!" Leon yelled. "Sora, wake up!"  
  
Sora opened his eyes completely and looked around. He was still floating and haven't seen the guardian, which was behind him at the time, preparing to hit him in the back.  
  
"Behind you!" Cid warned.  
  
Sora quickly avoided the attack and floated away from the guardian. It was Peter Pan's magic, Sora thought, that was making him fly, just like before, when he was almost losing a fight against Hirosh.  
  
The guardian roared so loud that it could be heard from miles from there. Sora then began to look for his weapon. It was on the ground.  
  
"Leon, please... get the keyblade for me!" Sora asked, but that wasn't necessary. The keyblade quickly warped to his hands.  
  
"You're her bearer, Sora. It wouldn't let you alone." Leon explained. "Now rip this guy off, and we complete the job when it reaches the ground."  
  
Sora began to try thinking about some abilities he had learned. Riku once taught him a quick way to hurt an enemy and don't let him know where you are. It's the stab-n-run ability of Riku.  
  
Speaking of Riku... where was him?  
  
"Hazy... hazy place..." he said...  
  
...  
  
"Where am I?"  
  
"You don't know?" a voice asked.  
  
"Wh-what? No, I don't. Who are you?"  
  
"You're... here..." everything was clear again and Riku could see where he was.  
  
It was Destiny Islands, but a bit different. It was all cracked down and there was no ocean, but a big abyss.  
  
Riku, then, saw the person who spoke to him earlier. 


	5. Chapter 5: Ghosts from the past

Riku, then, saw the person who spoke to him earlier. It was a girl. A little hope grew inside him making him think it could be Kairi but she wasn't her. This one had a longer black hair and her eyes were hidden by the hair.  
  
She was wearing a cloak, different from Hirosh and the others'. This cloak seemed a bit ripped and cut, it had no hood and seemed thicker. In her back, there was a Keyblade. A different Keyblade, though. While the ones seen up to now had only one "blade", this one had two, one in the opposite direction to the other. It could be used as a two-bladed sword.   
  
Riku was, then, getting worried. Who would that girl be? The weapon she was carrying seemed dangerous. He'd already wielded a Keyblade and knew how powerful they can be. And a two-sided one would be twice as powerful.  
  
"Welcome." the girl said.  
  
"Wh-who are you?"  
  
"You afraid?"  
  
"..."  
  
"There's nothing to fear. It's not you who the problem is. It's Ansem."  
  
"Ansem? What did he do, now?"  
  
"Ansem and his men unsealed the passage among the three dimensions."  
  
"Three dimensions...?"  
  
"Long ago... this man divided us... the three of us... We lived in only one world."  
  
...  
  
"Disagreements began... like in any other society. Then, people started using weapons, each time, stronger weapons were used. Then our ruler decided to divide us. First, the light. Then, darkness."  
  
...  
  
"However, there was a hidden space between these created dimensions. The in-between. The ruler didn't care about it. To sucessfully seal these dimensions he put big strong guardians on the gates and two keys at each dimension. Except for the in-between, where all got confused... my Key..." she pointed at the Keyblade in her back. "My Key was made like this."  
  
"I... I see... but I don't..."  
  
"Since you're here, help me. Help me opening all the two gates." she got nearer to him "Please."  
  
"I... don't know. I don't know you, what if you do something bad? Huh?"  
  
The girl turned back.  
  
"Weren't you the one who said that wasn't afraid of darkness?"  
  
Foooooshh!  
  
Maran woke up.  
  
"Hey, kid! This is the one!" the manager said.  
  
"Y-you sure?" Maran said, waking up.  
  
"Yes. Let's go." a voic said, behind him.  
  
Maran turned quicky and saw how said that.  
  
"Rina!" Maran got surprised.  
  
"Maran, don't start. I'm going with you, no matter what, ok? Just get over it, come on." she said.  
  
"Ok, Rina, I won't tell you to not go with me. Just... know that I'm not forcing you or something."  
  
"No, I know you're not forcing me. I am forcing myself, heh heh, that's what. Come on, this is the train to Astral Canyon. The manager told me everything while you slept."  
  
Maran approached the train station manager.  
  
"Thanks. I wouldn't do any of this without you. If I could, I'd give you a tip but I don't have money not even for me."  
  
"Don't worry, sonny. Just go and follow your destiny." the man said.  
  
Already on board, Maran and Rina waved at the good manager who was then sitting on the bench. The train started to move and left the station. Some minutes later, left Twilight Town.  
  
Rina was sitting in front of Maran. Now she was the one who was sleeping. Maran kept looking at ther calm, worryless face, thinking. What would he do when he found the cloaked guy? He didn't know if threatning him would give some answers out. Rina opened her left eye.  
  
"What are you looking, Maran?"  
  
"Nothing. I'm just... thinking..." he said, fastly.  
  
"About...?"  
  
"This... guy we're chasing. I don't know what we'll do when we finally reach him."  
  
"Something tells me that the thing to do will be pretty obvious when we spot him."  
  
The train finally arrived at the almost-ruined station at Astral Canyon. An old man showed them the way and filed their arrival.  
  
Astral Canyon was formed of three areas. Two were the cliffs and the third was the bottom of the Canyon, almost unreachable without proper vehicle, as a paper in the train said. Maran and Rina walked around the cliff side the station.  
  
"Look!" Rina pointed. There was a black dot at the bottom of the Canyon.  
  
Maran squeezed his eyes, trying to focus on who was that person. His hopes were real. It was the cloaked guy. He was in the bottom of the Canyon.  
  
"We need to get down there!" Maran said.  
  
"How?" Rina asked him.  
  
"I don't know..." Maran looked at a near depression on the field. "Maybe we can... slide?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Look..." he pointed at the depression. It had a good form for sliding.  
  
"You're crazy, right?"  
  
"Well, I will go and you wait here, ok? But don't leave this spot." Maran approached the depression and then sat on the floor. "Uh.. Rina..."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Push me."  
  
She did push him but she slided down along with him. The Canyon was pretty high and they haven't really realized this until they were there, sliding... screaming and trying to stop.  
  
When they finally reached the base of the cliff, the bottom of Astral Canyon, Maran looked up.  
  
"Heh, well, there's no turning back now."  
  
He helped the troubled Rina with all the sand that was in her and then they began looking for the cloaked guy. He was spotted after a few seconds of search. Maran and Rina runned to meet him, he was starngely standing still.  
  
"YOU!" Maran said, when finally got near him.  
  
He turned. He was totally identical to Mickey, but Maran couldn't know it.  
  
"I'm glad you came so quickly. I thought you'd take longer. Come on."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
The cloaked guy moved a rock and behind it a gate could be found. A gate...  
  
"Raise your Key." he said.  
  
Maran did so and a black ray came out of his Keyblade and the cloaked guy's. The ray entered in the gate's keyhole and it opened. The Canyon stated trembling, then.  
  
"Get ready. It'll appear shortly."  
  
"It...?"  
  
It was huge, it resembled a dragon but had some human parts, that fit a golden armor. It also had a silver sword in hands, a very long and thick one. It was a guardian, surprise!  
  
"Whaaaaaa!" Maran yelled.  
  
"Come on, we can do this!" the cloaked guy said.  
  
Maran tried to follow his 'ally' on the fighting but he wasn't able to. Then he remembered he didn't own a Key, he owned two of them. Maran, then, engaged with the guardian using his two Keyblades.  
  
The guardian fell after a few minutes of slashing. It didn't stand a chance.  
  
"What was that thing?" Rina asked to both of them.  
  
"I don't know..." Maran replied.  
  
"It was the guardian of the gate. The gate... to the in-between..." he looked at the gate. "Come on. Onyl the two of us shall pass the gate."  
  
Maran looked at Rina.  
  
"You stay right here, ok?"  
  
"No, I won't let you go!"  
  
"Come on, Rina, I have to figure this out. I promise I'll come back. You hear, I promise!" they looked at each other for a bit and then separated.  
  
The cloaked guy was the first to pass through the gate. Maran followed him. After Maran passed trough it, the gate disappeared.  
  
"Maran? Nooooooo!" Rina got desperated when saw the gate disappearing.  
  
Everything turned black, then. Maran could only see his cloaked new companion.  
  
"My name, by the way, is Pete. Yours?"  
  
"I-I'm... Maran... but where are we?"  
  
"I think we are already in the in-between. We have to be spotted by the Keyblade master of this place. He's the one who controls things around here."  
  
"'He'?" a female voice asked. Then, Maran and Pete could see themselves back at Twilight Town. But it was all cracked and distorted, just like Destiny Islands before.  
  
"Who are you?" Pete asked.  
  
"I am the one who controls things around here, heh heh heh."  
  
"So it's... a girl...?"  
  
"Yes. Whahahahaha! So naive, you really thought it would be a guy? Well, it could have been a guy if our lord had so decided."  
  
"HEY, YOU! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU??" a voice was calling. A purple-haired kid appeared in the middle of them. It was Riku.  
  
"What did you do with me?" he asked her. "And who are you?" he asked Maran and Pete.  
  
"We're the ones who have questions." Maran said.  
  
"STOP!" the girl yelled, echoing in all directions. "This is a nice meeting, very nice, and I'd really love to talk to Ansem and figure out why did he do this."  
  
"Ansem?" Riku said. "I knew he was behind all this."  
  
"You do realize he's been behind all this since the division itself happened." Pete said.  
  
"Ansem... was the ruler of your story?" Riku asked the girl.  
  
"Oh, yes. He was the ruler who divided the worlds... and also... my father..." she said, surprising everyone.  
  
Meanwhile...  
  
"HAAACK!" Sora screamed while doing his finishing slash at the guardian. It was a tough fight, he was very hurt.  
  
The guardian exploded and millions of sparks fell from the air. Sora fell from the air too, bleeding. Leon tried to treat his injuries and Donald was getting some healing items.  
  
"Look!" Goofy said, pointing at the sky. Everyone looked, then.  
  
There was a gate. A floating gate!  
  
"Clever. Indeed, veeeery clever..." a voice said behind them. It was the Cheshire Cat.  
  
"You... I remember you..." Sora said, trying to get up. "You're from Wonderland, right?"  
  
"My hometown, indeed, Wonderland is. But special attention you King did ask me. Spotted you people and communicated the King. Now he's waiting for you. Up there." the cat pointed at the gate.  
  
"What's that? A floating gate?" Donald asked.  
  
"The gate... to the intermediate dimension, oh, so poetic land. It was once so mysterious, now it's a despair land. Pure dispair, not only that tasty feel of mysteriousness."  
  
"Blah, blah, blah, so you're sayin' we must go up there?"  
  
"A correction I must add. Only the poetic spiked hair must go. The others won't be able to pass trough the gates of dispair whereas they aren't Keyblade masters. Now go, puppet of destiny. Fly to your fate." the cat said, while his eyes, body and legs were gradually disappearing.  
  
"Wait, what's in there?" Sora asked but the cat was no longer there.  
  
"What to do now, Sora?" Leon asked.  
  
"Riku, what shall I do?" Sora asked.  
  
...  
  
"Riku?" Sora noticed he wasn't there.  
  
"Where the hell is that kiddo? I was keepin' an eye on him!" Cid said.  
  
"RIKUUU!!" Sora called. "WHERE ARE YOUUUU?"  
  
"Sora..." Donald said.  
  
"Yes, Donald?"  
  
"Go to the gate and meet up with the King. We'll look out for Riku, ok?"  
  
"...Uh, you sure, guys?" Sora really didn't want to go alone.  
  
"Good idea, stupid duck. Come on, folks!"  
  
Leon approached Sora.  
  
"You know how to reach that thing? It's high."  
  
"I... yes, I do..." Sora said.  
  
Sora closed his eyes and focused on what his good friend Peter Pan once said. Believe... believe... believe...  
  
"Believe... believe..." Sora was saying.  
  
"Sora!" Goofy said, he seemed in pretty lower level.  
  
Sora opened his eyes and he was floating, like before, near the gate.  
  
"You did it!" Goofy and the others comemorated.  
  
"Now get out alive of this place, ok?" Cid said.  
  
Sora felt cold while touching the doorknob.  
  
"Sora."  
  
"Huh? Who's there?" Sora realized the voice was coming from inside the gate.  
  
"Use your Key, and I'll use mine. We'll open this up."  
  
"Oh, ok!" Sora, then, raised his Keyblade. A white ray came out of it and reached the gate's keyhole. The gate opened.  
  
"Mickey!" Sora hugged the friend. "We were all so worried."  
  
"I know, I know. Come on, we got some important business to deal with, now."  
  
"We're going inside?"  
  
"Yes. Come..."  
  
Sora entered the gate. It suddenly closed down and disappeared.  
  
...  
  
...  
  
"Ansem is your father?" Riku asked the girl.  
  
"Oh, yes. I would love to be proud of it, though, but he did nothing but foolishness. All this..." she waved her hands around "...could have been skipped if he had used his strenght."  
  
"But he was still a good man. We would never use his strenght!" Mickey said, reaching the group along with Sora.  
  
"Riku!" Sora and Riku then hug. "Where are we? Who are these?" he pointed at Maran and Pete.  
  
"I don't like this. I don't know what is going on either." Maran was getting mad, though nervous.  
  
A big white spark happened. Everybody was still there.  
  
"What happened, what was that?" Mickey asked the girl.  
  
"Finally..." Riku said, his voice sounded weird. "I thought I would never be able to possess this body again." it was Ansem in Riku's body.  
  
"It's Ansem!" Sora said.  
  
"Hah hah hah, how pathetic..." the girl giggled.  
  
"Look who's talking." Ansem said.  
  
The girl stood across the possessed Riku and placed her hand in his shoulder.  
  
"What do you mean, daddy?"  
  
"Daddy? Ansem is this girl's father?" Sora asked.  
  
"It seemes so." Mickey replied. "What do you want, Ansem, just say."  
  
"It is time to these worlds to merge... and the consequences won't be pleasant." Ansem started saying. "It is time for the Keys to become one. Only one. An all-binding Key. And it shall be held by me, the only ruler. The only who stood up and moved people."  
  
"Pardon me." the girl interrupted. "You literally 'moved' people. The people you're saying were forced to bow to you. Or you think I don't know!"  
  
"What do you know, tell us!" Sora said.  
  
The girl looked at Sora and a tear formed in her left eye.  
  
"Sora..." she said... her voice was changing.  
  
"Sora! Help me!" her voice got completely different. Her shape was changing too.  
  
Ansem quickly stole the two-bladed Key of her back and stabbed her, and a mix of black and white began to shine inside her. She fell down to her knees and then, not resisting, fell down. Dead.  
  
"Sora... help... me..." she finished changing. She was Kairi.  
  
Sora stared at the girl for some seconds. It was Kairi. It's been Kairi all along.  
  
"She closed her heart to darkness." Mickey said, sadly. "Her shape changed."  
  
The floor suddenly trembled, then.  
  
"Now, we finally can merge all dimensions!" Ansem said, scarily happy. "We got an unstable number of Keyblade masters!" he swung the double-sided Keyblade.  
  
"She... was your daughter?" Maran said.  
  
"Indeed she was. I wouldn't have her in the middle of all this but I had no choice. She knew too much to stay there, outside."  
  
"But she lived with us, not with you!" Sora yelled, mad at Ansem.  
  
"I sent her over to your island so then I could have some peace. I thought she'd lose her memory or something. She really did, but not completely."  
  
"I remember she never mentioned her home..." Sora said, remembering the days he spent with Kairi.  
  
"She could be just one of the princesses of heart. But, no. She ruined my plans once! And then... twice!"  
  
...  
  
"First she stole the double-sided Key, what made her a Keyblade master. Then she, after I sent her to your stupid island, helped you. I've always felt safe because you would never figure out the power of a Keyblade."  
  
"Why wouldn't I?"  
  
"Because you lived only in the shadow of our fellow Riku!" Ansem said, pointing at the body he was controlling. "He was the one who was supposed to get the Key, and with an sucsetible body like his, I could easily take over him, like I'm doing now!" Ansem was saying, swinging his, or Riku's, arms around. "I took advantage on luck, just that."  
  
"...And now we got one Keyblade master missing, so this will cause an combination..." Pete was summing up.  
  
"I also took advantage on the fact of my petit didn't know about merging. Or the conditions to it."  
  
"That's interesting... very... very interesting. But don't forget we're still four." Sora said, bravely.  
  
"Uh, yeah, that's right. This... fusion thing won't happen to your glory, it won't!" Maran said, taking courage of nowhere.  
  
"It's all futile you morons. You all will be sucked by the fusion! And once the world is one again, I'll be the only ruler around. No Keys, no Kingdom Hearts!"  
  
"...Kingdom Hearts..." Sora said to himself. "...It's... where all hearts are born... and also where... darkness... and... light..." Sora was summing up too.  
  
"Kid..." Pete said to Maran. "I think I know what to do."  
  
"What, tell me!" Maran said in low voice to Pete.  
  
...  
  
Sora places his hand on his Keyblade.  
  
"What are you gonna do?" MIckey asked him, in low voice.  
  
"I... I don't know, but I'll do something."  
  
"Wait..." Mickey put his hand in Sora's way. "Take this."  
  
Mickey gave Sora a papou fruit. But it seemed like a keychain. Sora understood, then, it was Oathkeeper's keychain, the one Kairi gave him in the past year.   
  
"Where did you find it?"  
  
"It was with... her..."  
  
"..."  
  
"She also had the Oblivion, but I believe you won't need darkness in your heart, now."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"So, good luck."  
  
...  
  
"So what are you two babbling there? Well, it doesn't matter. Now focus on what I do..." Ansem raised his, or Riku's, hands. "The power..." light began to surround him, "Whaa--"  
  
"What's that?" Maran asked, scared.  
  
Pete lowered his eyes. "Light. Humph. It always shows up if it exists."  
  
"You don't understand! I don't fear light anymore because now I control it!" Ansem swung his hands around the light which was surrounding him.  
  
"That's not quite it..." Sora said.  
  
"What, you moron?" Ansem was getting visibly nervous.  
  
"You're not in control of light. Neither darkness. This division you created... gave these two sides autonomy." Sora was saying, and Ansem was getting even more scared. "Swing your hand around light more. Look at it."  
  
Ansem looked at his hands and they were all like melting or something.  
  
"What the hell!!" Ansem said. "How can you stupid..." he stopped, then.  
  
...  
  
"It must be the Key..." Ansem said to himself. "GIVE ME THE KEY!"  
  
"Come get it!" Sora said, engaging battle position.  
  
"I don't have time for this, you moron, I'm... mel...ting"  
  
"So the great ruler is melting? Run for the fort, huh?" Maran let out a joke. Pete and Sora laughed.  
  
"That's not funny you dumbasses!" although Ansem was in Rikku's body, if this body died, so would Ansem. And Riku... well, would be walking around non-existance.  
  
Hmmm... non-existance...  
  
"I know. I still... got a card on my hands..." Ansem said, stepping away. "Behold... The Nullside!"  
  
"The... what?" Sora asked.  
  
The cracked down Destiny Islands began to tremble. Everything seemed to be falling apart, then. When it stopped, there was a huge creature in front of them.  
  
"Behold the Nullside. The best of none dimension!" Ansem was strangely laughing.  
  
The creature, however, began to shorten, making Ansem even more nervous. The creature assumed a human form, then. It was... Rina!  
  
"RINA??" Maran yelled, recognizing his friend.  
  
"What the hell?" Ansem said, perplexed.  
  
Rina was uncouncious. She fell on the floor and stood there. Maran tried to reach her to help her but Ansem didn't let him go, he contained him with a thrown spark.  
  
Ansem approached Rina.  
  
"You... you mustn't... be..."  
  
...  
  
A white haze surrounded Rina, then.  
  
"RINA!" Maran was trying to get up but he couldn't. Pete couldn't get near, too, Ansem created some kind of barrier.  
  
"What... what does it mean...?" Mickey seemed to be asking himself. "Why her...?"  
  
"Mickey, who's that girl?" Sora asked.  
  
"I don't know Sora. Not yet."  
  
"Wake up!" Ansem demanded. She didn't answer.  
  
"She'll only reply to me, you meanie!" Maran said, bravely.  
  
Ansem turned to face Maran.  
  
"Is that so? Ok, then, you big show-off, wake her up. But do only that." Ansem stepped back and let Maran approach.  
  
Maran came closer to her and kneeled. He placed his right hand on her cheek. It was warm.  
  
"Rina... what happened to you?" Maran asked her, in low voice.  
  
She wasn't moving.  
  
"I know!", "I understand, now!" both Mickey and Pete said, at the same instant.  
  
"What? What do you stupid big-eared morons know?" Ansem turned, desperated, trying to get an answer.  
  
"She's part of the in-between." Mickey said.  
  
"Yes. Her other part died, so she's dying too." Pete completed.  
  
"She's... dying?" Maran couldn't believe. "Why? Why her?"  
  
"Hmmm..." Ansem looked up.  
  
Ansem, in other words, Riku began to tremble a lot and fell on the floor. A dark haze came out of him, then. He got up afterwards, it seemed that he had just waken up from a very long sleep.  
  
"...Sora? Mickey? What the hell?" it was Riku, Ansem was no longer in his body.  
  
Sora ran to hug his recovered friend.  
  
"Riku! I'm glad you're back! Ansem took over your body... again!" Sora said.  
  
"I can't believe this! Why?"  
  
"Your heart... is too susceptible to darkness, it seems." Pete said.  
  
"Wrong..." Mickey said. "This division doesn't apply to Ansem. We are light and you two are darkness. Ansem has no side, neither the girls do."  
  
"But where did Ansem go, anyway?" Pete asked.  
  
"Don't know. Why did he leave the Riku's body?" Mickey replied with another question.  
  
"People!" Maran called for attention. "Rina's pretty bad in here!"  
  
Everyone came closer to her.  
  
"What can we do? We can't get out!" Sora said.  
  
After that, it seems that they begin to see someone else's memories...  
  
...  
  
...  
  
A candle is lit.  
  
"Father..." a female voice says.  
  
"Yes, darling?"  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
"I'm doing some experiments, you better not touch anything."  
  
"I see. You're so smart, daddy."  
  
"Heh, I only do what I can, sweetheart. Now, go back to the garden, daddy is prety busy here."  
  
"Ok..."  
  
...  
  
...  
  
Experiments...  
  
"What the hell, I'm tired of this. The only way of fusing these two elements... is finding their in-between..."  
  
"Daddy..."  
  
"...what are you doing here? I told you to leave!"  
  
"I-I'm sorry..."  
  
"Forget about it! Come here."  
  
The girl approaches...  
  
"Look trough this mirror... do you like what you see?"  
  
"Yes, daddy. It's a very pretty island."  
  
"Would you like to go there?"  
  
"Um, yes, but... um... what about that place...?" she pointed to a picture of a town near the mirror. Shortly the image of the town was on the mirror.  
  
"You prefer the town, sweetie?"  
  
"I don't know. Can't I choose both?"  
  
"Both... both... ...yes! Yes, you can! It will be even better! Hah hah hah! BOTH! CHOOSE BOTH! YES!"  
  
"Daddy?"  
  
"Come here, I'll show you the way."  
  
...  
  
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHH---" the girl's scream. She's divided in the half and shortly both parts assume normal human parts.  
  
A spark follows, then, and both girls, yes, both girls leave.  
  
After that...  
  
"You're proud of what you did?"  
  
"Who the--"  
  
The man is hit.  
  
"Who the hell... are you..."  
  
"I'm..." 


	6. Chapter 6: Capitulyn

"I'm Cloud. I'm with the rebels."  
  
"It's no use. All has already been done. You should be wasting your time trying to stop it. But I'll let you know that it'll be impossible!"  
  
Cloud was worried. After thinking a bit, he left. Outside, he met up with Leon and Cid. They boarded an airship and left. All the people around seemed worried as well.  
  
Ansem was calm, actually.  
  
"Heh heh heh... now it is just a time matter..."  
  
He put out the candle.  
  
...  
  
...  
  
"So she was actually... two?" Sora said.  
  
"Two indeed. Kairi and Rina." Pete affirmed.  
  
"What to do, now?" Maran asked, desperated.  
  
"It's no use, Maran. The only way of bringing her back is bringing Kairi back in the first place." Pete said.  
  
Maran looked at him with a mixture of sadness and desperation.  
  
"And how will we bring her back? She's... been stabbed..." Sora said, sad, too.  
  
"I don't know!" Maran yelled.  
  
"Well, I know!" Mickey concluded.  
  
"What?" all the others asked.  
  
"We must get her Keyblade first. Ansem took it, unfortunately. But we're getting it back." Mickey stated.  
  
"Where must have he runned to?" Pete asked.  
  
Mickey looked at Sora. He knew, then.  
  
"Hollow Bastion." Sora said.  
  
Before they asked how to leave that place, Mickey led them to a gate which was in the same place as the entrace to the 'secret place' Sora and Kairi had at the island. The door opened and a ray of light began to come out of it.  
  
"You'll have to find your gate, this one doesn't belong to you." Mickey said, leaving them along with Sora and Riku.  
  
"What?" Maran said. "How are we supposed to find our gate??"  
  
"There." Pete pointed at the town-ish side of the place they were. It was the train station gate. "IF that was their gate, this one is ours."  
  
"But how are we going to meet up with them?"  
  
"As far as I know, this Hollow Bastion is found in the light dimension. It's their business. We'll have to take care of the girl." Pete said.  
  
"You... sure?" Maran said.  
  
"Yes." Pete said, kneeling to check on Rina.  
  
Maran began thinking about what they were doing, then. The only way of really helping Rina would be... somehow bringing Kairi back. In order to really help out, he'd have to go with Sora and Mickey.  
  
"Pete." Maran said.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I'm coming after them."  
  
"What? Why? What about the girl?"  
  
"I'm going to bring the other girl back so Rina also comes back. You get it?"  
  
"Hmm... yes, but..."  
  
"Please take care of her, here, or take her to our world. I'm going..." Maran began running through the way Sora and Mickey walked. He soon reached them.  
  
"Sora! Mickey!" Maran said, breathing quickly.  
  
"Maran?! Weren't you taking care of that girl?" Mickey said.  
  
"Uh, yes, Pete's with her, now. The thing is... I want to help you. Let's bring that girl... Kairi... back. Then Rina can recover."  
  
"It makes sense, but we don't know if we'll manage to... bring Kairi back..." Sora said, sad.  
  
"Yeah, I know... but I'm going with you guys to help you out, okay? Please." Maran was practically begging them.  
  
"Ok, Maran, but let's hurry up. We don't know what Ansem is doing. He left this place too quickly, I wonder what's going on..." Mickey said, leading Maran to the gate.  
  
Meanwhile...  
  
"Why were you running away?" Ansem asked the creature that was stored in a bubble-like device, in his room. "Huh? Answer me!"  
  
The being raised its eyes. It was Hirosh.  
  
His cloak laid on the desk next to the device that was keeping him. Ansem was impatiently poking his head with his fingers.  
  
"Answer me, traitor!" Ansem yelled.  
  
"In trouble, Ansem?" a female voice said, at the door. Ansem turned quickly.  
  
It was the dark-ish girl spotted at the in-between before turning into Kairi.  
  
"What are you doing here?" Ansem said, scared.  
  
"Looks like you haven't calculated the whole equation. You summed all the icognites and diminished all the numbers... but you forgot about the reason." she was saying.  
  
"You!" Ansem pointed at Hirosh, inside de device. "You summoned her, s-somehow..." Ansem was getting more desperated.  
  
"No, sweetheart." she handed her two-sided Keyblade. "It... summoned me." then Ansem was stabbed in the chest... stading still for a couple seconds and then falling on the floor. A dark haze came out of him leaving nothing but a stinky smell.  
  
It could be spotted, then, what the girl meant by 'it'. A keychain that held both Oathkeeper and Oblivion.  
  
Hirosh began moving inside the device, just like if he was trying to get the girl's attention. She, however, began walking towards the door.  
  
"Mmmm!!" was all he could say. He began moving forth and back, trying to break the glass.  
  
The girl stopped at the door and looked back.  
  
"What do you want? Your role is finished."  
  
He continued to move forward and back. The girl approached the device and looked at him.  
  
"Look at you. A mutation. Half-heartless, half-human, or even worse, I can't think of any worse." she was saying, snubbing him.  
  
Hirosh, then, pointed to the Oblivion keychain with his tiny deformed finger. He was really a mutation, like the girl said. He was a lot smaller, had a bold and small head, his body was proportionally small and thick fingers and feet. Haven't spoken till now, also.  
  
The girl, then, closed the door.  
  
"You... passed by both phases, didn't you?" she asked Hirosh, but knew he couldn't answer. "And you survived... I mean, I know this isn't a total survival but at least it's something, you're breathing, right?"  
  
"Come on, how do I open this up?" she said, looking for a lever or a button, but the device had no buttons or levers.  
  
She, then, found a remote on a near table and tried pointing it at the device and pressing its only button. The bubble opened and all the water inside it came out, making the floor watered.  
  
"Whaaaayyckk!!" Hirosh did with his tiny mouth.  
  
The girl picked up the cloak that was once his and cut it to fit the smaller version of Hirosh, then made him wear it.  
  
"See? Confortable, isn't it?" she said, strangely kind.  
  
"Whoo..." was all what he said.  
  
"Come on we gotta find the other Keyblade masters." she said, putting Hirosh on her shoulder and leaving the room.  
  
Ansem was no longer there, though.  
  
Maran, Riku, Sora and Mickey reached the gate but the place they faced after opening it wasn't the one they left Cid, Leon, Donald and Goofy. It was a dark... dusty place. It seemed to be a library.  
  
"Where... are we?" Maran asked.  
  
Mickey touched one of the bookshelves.  
  
"I feel I know this place."  
  
"Me too." Sora said.  
  
"Humph. Why do I feel the same?" Riku said.  
  
The place was huge, it could fit twenty Traverse Town accessory shops. But they couldn't tell because it was too dark. There were two huge windows at the other side of the room, windows that came from the floor to the highest point of the wall. A storm seemed to be blowing outside.  
  
There was someone watching them throught the window. It was the two-bladed Keyblade girl.  
  
"We must find an exit." Sora said, moving around in circles. "But we also must stick together."  
  
"Why? We must split up, it'll be easier." Riku said.  
  
Sora, then, felt a déjà vu.  
  
...  
  
"Why don't we split up and..." Riku began.  
  
"No... that never works." Sora interrupted.  
  
"What? Why?" Riku asked.  
  
"Let's just... stay together! Something tells me that we must... stay together. Just..." Sora was saying.  
  
"'Something tells you'?" Riku asked, almost mocking him, "Come on, Sora, we got to find that guy Cid. If someone finds him, just give a signal."  
  
...  
  
...  
  
"LET'S JUST STAY TOGETHER!" Sora yelled after remembering the previous arguing.  
  
"Sora..." Riku approached him, "Why do you always feel that something is going to happen if we separate? This place isn't as big as that world we were before. If anything happens, someone can yell and the others will quickly come."  
  
Sora lowered his head.  
  
"Do as you wish. I won't say no, now. Don't worry."  
  
"That's how a man is supposed to respond. Now, everyone..." Riku said, "Um, Mickey what division should we make?"  
  
"None." Mickey replied.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Look." Mickey pointed at the window. The girl was no longer there, though.  
  
"There's nothing there, Mickey." Riku said.  
  
"I know. But she was there. She's... somewhere in here."  
  
"She... who?" Sora asked.  
  
"The in-between master... the two-sided Keyblade wielder..." Mickey said, terrifying the others.  
  
"But... wasn't she... Kairi... and Rina?" Sora said.  
  
"Yes. I wonder how she is walking... by herself..." Mickey said.  
  
...  
  
"You know what to do, don't you? C'mon, I have explained it to you twice." the girl was telling the small and troubled Hirosh. His height couldn't reach not even the girl's knee.  
  
"Baa..." he said. He'd learned this was a 'yes' variation. Or, at least, hoped so.  
  
Hirosh, then, opened the window and entered. He was still wearing the black cloak's remainings.  
  
"Yaa..." he was saying, while approaching Mickey and the others.  
  
The girl, then, entered, too. But she went to meet Mickey and the others through another way.  
  
"Something.. is moving..." Mickey said.  
  
"Where?" Maran got scared.  
  
"Don't know."  
  
"There! I saw something moving there!" Riku pointed at a spot near the bookshelf's end. "Let's check it out."  
  
"I'm..." Maran began.  
  
"What, scared?" Riku said. "There's no time to be scared, now. Remember we're trying to get your girl back, too."  
  
"I was gonna say I'm going to check it out, you stay here." Maran said.  
  
"Hah, really? Interesting. Why would you do that?"  
  
"Because..." Maran began walking towards the spot Mickey pointed.  
  
...  
  
"WHAAA!!" Maran screamed. Everybody ran to check it out.  
  
"Maran?" Sora called.  
  
"What's that?" Mickey spotted Hirosh, then.  
  
"It's a... dwarf?" Riku said.  
  
"Whoo!!" Hirosh was trying to scare them but that wasn't working. But this wasn't the girl's plan.  
  
"Come on, Sora, grab your Keyblade and save this poor heartless..." Riku said. He said it looked like a shadow.  
  
But when Sora, and later Maran, tried to reach their Keyblades... they weren't with them.  
  
"Looking for your weapons?" the girl said, behind them.  
  
"Whoa!" they saw her, she was holding Sora and Maran's Keyblades.  
  
"Those aren't even weapons, silly kids. They're tools, not weapons. But you, with your unlimited selfishness, found out you could save the heartlesses by using the Keyblades to defeat them. But this isn't what happens!"  
  
"Why should we believe you?" Sora said.  
  
"Yeah, you're the enemy. We mustn't trust the enemy." Maran completed.  
  
"Hah... I'm the enemy? Well, you really don't know how to classify..." she kneeled and holded Hirosh, which thanked her with a noisy 'boo'. "Ansem is the enemy. Ansem, and his knowledge. This second one generated a big and powerful enemy. The unknown."  
  
"Unknown?" Sora asked, not understanding her words.  
  
"Its both meanings fit. It's the first of the cloaked people's order, the order which soon allied to Ansem. Well, the Unknown was the only one who didn't. Hirosh wasn't initially a member of this order, he joined it to thank Ansem for saving him from being a heartless." she was saying, hugging Hirosh. "But he, unfortunately, came back to his own self. Just like anything that once looses their heart."  
  
"THAT's Hirosh?" Mickey got surprised.  
  
"Um, yeah. He's more like a puppy to me. You'll soon be like this. You... " she pointed at Maran, "...and you." and then to Sora.  
  
"Why would we...?" Sora asked.  
  
"Like Hirosh, you once lost your hearts. You'll return to your heartless form once I destroy what binds you to Kingdom Hearts."  
  
"What?"  
  
"What united Hirosh and Kingdom Hearts was Ansem. But Hirosh betrayed him, and came back to this form. And when I use these two Keyblades to fuse with mine to survive the merging, you'll come back to your heartless form."  
  
Sora did once become a heartless. But Kairi saved him but that seemed to not be enough. Maran also had already became a heartless. It was when he was found. Rina's love was what cured him, and they were friends since then.  
  
"Now... I offer you... a choice." the girl said, then. "Join me. Everything will be easier, I know how stubborn you can be."  
  
"What do we do?" Maran asked Sora.  
  
"No clue..." Sora replied. 


	7. Chapter 7: Wicked

Sora did once become a heartless. But Kairi saved him but that seemed to not be enough. Maran also had already became a heartless. It was when he was found. Rina's love was what cured him, and they were friends since then.  
  
"Now... I offer you... a choice." the girl said, then. "Join me. Everything will be easier, I know how stubborn you can be."  
  
"What do we do?" Maran asked Sora.  
  
"...Yes." Sora said, surprising everyone. Then, he gave them all a look.  
  
"I knew you wouldn't refuse it. Sometimes, pride is the very first thing that screws you up. However..." she said, "I need to be sure."  
  
"What? Be sure of what?" Sora asked, nervous.  
  
"Be sure if you're not lying!" she said. The little Hirosh came down from her arms and moved towards Sora and Maran.  
  
"Whaaa..." he was saying.  
  
SLAM!!  
  
"What was that?" everybody asked.  
  
The girl looked up and then seemed calm.  
  
"Damn, looks like Ansem is smarter than me, but not much."  
  
"What?" Maran asked.  
  
"That moron is still alive, somewhere in here."  
  
"Where are we, anyway?" Mickey asked. "I feel I know this place."  
  
"This is Hollow Bastion's library. It's where Ansem gathered all his knowledge, I think. Now, come on. I want you to finish Ansem off. Take these..." she gave them two longswords. "If you can handle keys, you can handle swords."  
  
"Uh, ok, we were going to do the same thing anyways... " Maran began.  
  
"Go." the girl ordered, and they all left the room on the way to the lift stop room.  
  
"Boo?" Hirosh 'asked' her.  
  
"Hm. These morons will end up helping me in the end..."  
  
...  
  
Meanwhile, very far from there...  
  
...  
  
"Anythin'?" Cid asked Leon, Goofy and Donald, who were coming back from the jungle.  
  
"No. No sign of any of them." Leon answered.  
  
"I wonder if they may be at another world." Goofy said.  
  
"The Highwind is almost fixed, but it'll be risky to leave this place and maybe miss 'em." Cid said. "Although it's quite sure they may be at Hollow Bastion."  
  
"Hmmm, now that you said it, it makes sense. I mean, it's where Ansem is, right?" Leon said. "Ok, we're going. Goofy, duck, let's pack. Cid, make sure the airship is in good condition, ok?"  
  
"Don't worry, I'll do a millionth check just like Shera... oh, I miss that idiot..." Cid said, leaving.  
  
"I do have a name, you know!" Donald said to Leon, mad.  
  
"Uh, yes. C'mon, let's pack. We must find them!" Leon said, leaving too.  
  
"You see how things go? We're mere pieces of a... chess game..." Donald said to Goofy.  
  
"But pieces of chess games are crucial to the victory, aren't they?" Goofy said, making his way to the camp.  
  
"...Quork!" Donald said to himself after following Goofy.  
  
...  
  
...  
  
"Sora?" Maran called.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"You... you sure we'll be able to defeat Ansem?"  
  
"Well, I did that once."  
  
"But, with a longsword?"  
  
"Um, no... but I think he must be weak. That girl said she had already finished him off first."  
  
"Sora..." Mickey said.  
  
"Yes, Mickey?"  
  
"I still don't understand what her intention is. I mean, it's clear that she knows we were lying about joining her, but why did she send us to defeat Ansem?"  
  
"It'll be a favor we'd be doing for her." Riku said.  
  
"But it's also what we wanted to do in the first place." Maran said.  
  
"Yeah..." Riku said, thinking. "That girl... is hella smart..."  
  
They continued walking to the castle's chapel.  
  
In the shadows, she followed them with her eyes, along with Hirosh in her lap.  
  
"You see... they are confused. It's good to be in a third position, not a enemy nor an ally." she said, hugging the little Hirosh. "You hungry?"  
  
"Yaaa..." he said.  
  
"Figures. Let's follow these morons..." she said, getting up and putting Hirosh on her shoulder.  
  
When Sora and the others finally arrived at the castle chapel, they got surprised... there were all the princesses of heart! Well, there were Aurora, Cinderella, Snow White, Jasmine and Belle.  
  
"I feared this would happen!" Belle was saying, loudly.  
  
"Hey, hey, what's wrong?" Sora asked.  
  
"Alice's gone off to deal with Ansem herself. But the wall closed itself and we can't go in!" Belle said. Her mirror-like eyes were filled with tears. "Can you do something?"  
  
"Ansem's really got a nerve. After being defeated, he still wants to cause trouble." Maran said.  
  
"And who is this?" Aurora asked, reaching them.  
  
"This is Maran. He's.. uh, how can I say..."  
  
"And... that one! You were the one who tried to harm us in the past." Jasmine said. She was reffering herself to Riku.  
  
"I... I was out of my mind back then. I'm okay now."  
  
"Maran is the another part. We want to equalize things, we need all the parts." Mickey said, getting near them.  
  
"But that's..." Aurora began.  
  
"...the King!" the others said. They all gathered.  
  
"How did you manage to get out of Kingdom Hearts?" Jasmine asked.  
  
"All this will be soon explained. Now let's go. Look..." Mickey pointed to the altar. There was a black hole there, which was distorting that part of the chapel.  
  
"It's the Unknown." Mickey said. "I can feel it. It's the only... remaining part..."  
  
"'Remaining part'? What do you mean?" Maran asked.  
  
"It's the only cloaked figure we haven't seen yet."  
  
Then, Sora remembered the cloaked man he met in the beginning of all this, at the gardens of Disney Castle. He, at first, thought it had been Hirosh, but now he felt differently. But he wasn't going to tell Mickey that, it was too awkward.  
  
"Let's go." Mickey said, taking the lead to the hole.  
  
"Be careful..." both Belle and Aurora told them.  
  
But when Mickey tried to enter the hole, he couldn't. It acted like it wasn't there, Mickey trepassed it like it was transparent and couldn't get in. Riku tried after him and also couldn't.  
  
"I get it... it's... only for you two." Mickey said, looking at Sora and Maran.  
  
"We... both are going to fight the Unknown?" Sora asked, confused.  
  
"I don't know. I know nothing from now on, all this is based on guesses. Sorry." Mickey was acting odd. "But it would make sense if only you and Maran were able to enter."  
  
"HAAACK!" a voice said, behind the wall Alice seemed to have walked throught. It was a male voice.  
  
"Alice!" Belle got scared.  
  
"Oh, my... please, hurry!" Aurora said, nervous.  
  
Maran and Sora touched the hole and it was solid. They got in.  
  
...  
  
...  
  
...  
  
"...We all know what you've been doing..." an old voice said... Maran and Sora found themselves in a court-like room. They didn't seem to actually be there, they weren't noticed by the people sitting on the jury nor the judge himself.  
  
At the defendant's chair... was Ansem. He got up.  
  
"All 'what I have been doing' is strictly under the laws I stablished in my community. You got no right to..."  
  
"...Shut up, Master Ansem." the judge, somehow, imposed some authority upon Ansem. "We're all aware of your weird and suspicious laws but it is okay since it doesn't harm the other worlds, I mean, communities."  
  
"I am aware of that. No other community has been harmed."  
  
"Your mistake." the judge made a sign to the guard at the door. He opened the door and someone came in, seemed to be a witness, but Sora and Maran couldn't see face or body, only a dark blur.  
  
"You say you had contact with the plague this man scattered in space?" the judge asked the witness.  
  
Suddenly, the witness' body and face weren't blur anymore.  
  
It was Mickey.  
  
"The jury is aware of the political importance of the King that is witnessing now. Um, King Mickey..." the judge faced him. "Do you swear by all our laws and beliefs that all you are going to say here is true, nothing more or less than the truth?"  
  
"I do." Mickey said, with a voice rhytm that revealed his confidence.  
  
"I contest, you honor!" Ansem said, getting up. "This King has nothing to do with the case."  
  
"Well can you wait to see his arguments? Thank you." the judge said, impatiently.  
  
"Ansem... isn't a bad man." this shocked most people there. "He's just... with overwhelming ambition caused by immense knowledge and power. What I personally witnessed was that all people with low or none happiness on their lives were turning into shadows, shadows which were firstly developed by him."  
  
"I contest!" Ansem said once again.  
  
"Shut up! One more interruption and you'll be considered guilty!" the judge said, nervous. "Continue, King."  
  
Mickey looked up.   
  
"But you have to consider that he's our father..." that also shocked the people around, even the judge. Ansem was listening carefully, then.  
  
"Can you be more clear?" the judge said.  
  
"He's... how can I say... our worlds were created by him... he's our lord... and I think it's time for us to say thank you. But not by just saying it, but by helping him. Our lord, our father!" Mickey said, getting up.  
  
"So... this is your position..." the judge said.  
  
"Yes. I think we all owe a lot to our lord. Let's help him."  
  
"You shut up you little no-good King. You're a King just because of our skills, not because you originally deserved it, like me! And you better take all that you said."  
  
"Why, was I lying?"  
  
"Order, order..." the judge was demanding.  
  
"Yes, you were. 'Help me'? WHAH! I'd better die if my only chances of survival were being helped by such wimps." he began to walk towards the door.  
  
"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" the judge said.  
  
"Shut up." Ansem raised his arms and a huge spark stormed inside the room, scaring and hurting everyone but Mickey, who, somehow, had disappeared.  
  
...  
  
...  
  
"Maran...?" Sora was calling.  
  
"I'm here!"  
  
"Did you see that?"  
  
"Yes! That was Mickey, right?"  
  
"Yes!" they were speaking to each other but not seeing each other.  
  
All around was white... Sora and Maran had the feeling of being falling... falling... falling...  
  
Sora's mind beigns to get hazy and twisted. Then he finds hinself in a weird platform with a door on its middle. Maran appears right after him.  
  
"...Don't... try... to... understand... just... walk your way... to... the... ... ...door..." someone says...  
  
Sora and Maran try reaching the door but it seems that their movements get each time slower... till completely stopping in mid-step.  
  
"Don't be afraid. The door is still shut. Now, step forward. Can you do it?" the voice asks them.  
  
Then, Sora and Maran finally complete their movement, and reach the door. It's locked.  
  
Maran, spots a small key on the floor.  
  
"If you give it form... It will give you strength. Choose well." the voice says...  
  
Sora, by instinct, hands the longsword, and then so does Maran.  
  
"What are we gonna do?" Maran asks him.  
  
"...I have no idea... keep listening..." Sora said.  
  
"The day you will open the door is both far off and   
  
very near..."  
  
...  
  
"The closer you get to light, the greater your shadow   
  
becomes..."  
  
...  
  
"What's going on?" Maran asks, and their shadows begin to get larger.  
  
Then, the scenery begins to take form. They were back at the chapel Sora once fought Maleficent's dragon form.  
  
"But don't be afraid. And don't forget..."...there's a cloaked man in the center of the room.  
  
"But don't be afraid. You hold the mightiest weapon of   
  
all..." the voice continues...  
  
"So don't forget: You are the one who will open the   
  
door..."...  
  
...  
  
...  
  
The cloaked man turned and faced Sora and Maran.  
  
"I'm glad you came. So we're all here. Did you understand what you saw?"  
  
"Huh?" Sora and Maran were still confused.  
  
"Thanks to your foolish ruler, we had enough power to create life for ourselves... finally leave the non-existance, the shell..." he said.  
  
"What do you mean?" Maran asked.  
  
"So you were controlling Ansem?" Sora asked.  
  
"Hah..." this echoed around the whole place. "Of course not, foolish human. Ansem was acting stupidly on his own mind. We only took advantage on that. Ansem was like a monkey with a gun... too much power for a foolish person."  
  
Sora was still with the longsword in hands, and so was Maran.  
  
"You're going down." Sora said, courageous.  
  
"Yeah! You go back to your non-existance shell, or whatever it is!" Maran said.  
  
"So you're going to solve all this with a silly fight?" the man said. "I understand how your mind works, ok, I accept."  
  
"STOP!" someone said, behind them. It was Mickey. But he was hazy, just like verything they saw at that flashback.  
  
"Ansem gave you wings! But you're flying too far into evilness!" he said, he didn't seem to be seeing Sora and Maran.  
  
"Again, foolish! Get this abomination out of here, now!" the cloaked man swung his arms and the Mickey image disappeared.  
  
"Ansem... had the power. But we... had the intelligence!" a huge wave of sparks were thrown by him at Sora and Maran, who dodged difficultly.  
  
"If all of this is true, you must stop! You and your order..." Maran said, while trying to reach him and fight him.  
  
"My order isn't with me anymore. I am alone. I am better than them, though. Look at Hirosh for example, he's turned into a beast now! He wasn't originally one of us anyway..." he was saying, floating in the air, throwing sparks at them.  
  
Then, one of the rays hit Maran's leg.  
  
"Aaaahhh..."...  
  
"Maran!"  
  
"It is futile, all of this is futile you morons!" the cloaked man was saying. "I am the ultimate thinker these dimensions will face. I am not unknown, nor a man. I am the highest experiment of Ansem, the experiment that will destroy his master! Call me Unknown, it'll be fine. Will make you fear me even more." he said, while Maran was in pain and Sora was trying to heal his injury with a bit of his clothes.  
  
"Can you walk, now?"  
  
"I think I can..."  
  
"Come on, get your sword. We're here to beat him."  
  
Sora and Maran ran towards Unknown, who quickly avoided their attacks with a backflip. In response, conjured a sword for himself, apparently made of thunder.  
  
"You're fighting with swords so I got the right, huh?" he said, moving towards Maran, intending to hurt the other leg.  
  
"Come on!" Sora said behind Unknown, slashing his back.  
  
"Hah hah hah hah hah..." he was laughing while dodgind them. "You don't realize you just tearing my cloak. I got no body, you fools! See!"   
  
He left the cloak on the floor and initially they couldn't see anything. Then, Sora and Maran could see two purple eyes and a hazy dark human body.  
  
"Try slashing, now." he said, moving towards them.  
  
"What should we do, Sora?"  
  
"I have no idea!"  
  
"What is the only way to hurt him?" Maran asked.  
  
Sora looked up.  
  
"Unknown... is unknown... it's neither light or darkness, so how could we attack with an opposite element...?" he was thinking. "Unless we..." he stopped. "Maran!"  
  
The Unknown was now floating in their direction, getting ready to hit them both with only one slash of his thunder-ish sword.  
  
"Maran, concentrate all your strenght... on your sword... c'mon..." he said.  
  
"What? What are we gonna do?"  
  
"Just do this!" Sora said and began doing it too.  
  
Then, a white light began to shine in Sora's sword. At the same time, a dark light (if it can be said) began to shine in Maran's. Soon they were holding shiny blades, one black and another white.  
  
"Now let's join them!"  
  
The sword touched themselves and a huge mass was formed upon it. The white and black shining invaded the whole room, and the screams of the Unknown could be heard.  
  
"You shall... f...all..." he said after finally vanishing...  
  
The room quickly came back to normal. A new feeling was on their hearts, now.  
  
"Baa..." a little voice said. It was Hirosh, accompanied by the in-between girl.  
  
"What do you want? We don't need to fear you, anymore. We got the power!" Maran said, full of himself.  
  
"I know... I know... I... I heard everything you talked and saw everything you saw here... Well, little Hirosh did. Anyway... I... I want to apologize..." she said, lowering her head.  
  
Sora and Maran couldn't believe she was sorry.  
  
"Why would you?" Maran asked.  
  
"Because I was leading you to a trap. Who knows what's with my dad, now? Yes, he had no fault but this Unknown guy... he messed up my father's mind. He may still be..."  
  
"Shut up!" Ansem's voice echoed.  
  
"Don't worry! We'll help you!" she said, loudly.  
  
"Help me? The time you had to help me has already expired. You will now face the fate I've reserved to these sorry dimensions!" it echoed. "And I'd recommend you rushed to my tower..."  
  
"Let's go." Sora said.  
  
The castle, then, trembled and some rubbish fell from the ceiling.  
  
"We gotta stop this..." the girl said. "C'mon..." they left the chapel.  
  
"Sora!" Mickey said when he spotted him coming out of the hole. "What happened? What is she doing there?"  
  
"She's on our side, now. We fought the Unknown... and we won."  
  
"You fought... the Unknown? And you won? That's impossible." Mickey said.  
  
"Oh, yeah, it is." Maran said, proudly. "He first became all air and weapon, but we anihillated him as we..."  
  
"...United light and darkness. When you realized he had no side, either would your attacks have." the girl completed.  
  
The castle trembled again, this time harder.  
  
"What is going on?" Aurora asked.  
  
"How are we gonna come up to the tower?" Sora asked.  
  
"I have no idea." Mickey said.  
  
"I know." the girl said. "We can take another way. Trust me, I know this place like the back of my hand. Follow me!" she said, walking towards the entrace of the chapel.  
  
"Should we trust her?" Mickey asked Sora, in low voice.  
  
"That's our only option, Mickey..." Sora said.  
  
"Don't worry. This is getting to an end..." Mickey said, following her.  
  
The fellowship followed the girl around the castle. There were so many turns and deturns that Sora and Maran would never find their way back alone.  
  
CraaaAAAAaack!!  
  
A big window broke and a cloaked short person landed on the floor. It had a Keyblade.  
  
"Capitulyn!" he said...  
  
...  
  
...  
  
"...Pete?" Maran recognized. It was really Pete, but he was acting odd.  
  
A thunder.  
  
"I will not let you come up. If you want to stop Ansem, you'll have to stop me first." he said.  
  
"But Pete, weren't you with us? By our side? Weren't you taking care of Rina??" Maran kept asking. "Why are you saying these things?"  
  
"I don't know what you're talking about, moron. I'm a pawn, and I'll do a pawn's job." he raised his hands and charged a huge darkball. It multiplicated and was thrown against them.  
  
"Peter..." the girl said. "Peter?" she was calling. He didn't seem to notice that, though. "He's doomed. He's possessed by my father. I know... he's the only one who calls me... Capitulyn..." she said.  
  
"Your name is Capitulyn?" Sora asked.  
  
"Pete!" Maran was trying to call his friend. "Man, I can't believe this!"  
  
"The only way to free him is to confront the real Ansem." Mickey said. "Capitulyn, show us the way, we'll protect ourselves."  
  
"Ok..." she said, continuing her way but now, running. The others followed her and so did Pete, a bit late, though.  
  
"You think you can ruuun..." he was saying, "But I can follow!"  
  
They were not at some kind-of endless stairway. Soon they were at a new corridor. Then, Capitulyn said this was the last turn they'd be making.  
  
The new corridor was also seemed endless.  
  
"That's an illusion my father made. If you continue to walk forward you'll be lost forever. But there's a door right... here..." she pressed a particular part of the wall and it turned to be a wall. "Let's go!".  
  
When the door closed, Pete arrived.  
  
"Where are you, doomards?" he yelled. "Hmmm... they forgot who's controlling this body, heh heh heh..." he said, pressing the part of the wall that would turn to be a door, continuing to follow them.  
  
...  
  
It was the central tower's highest floor. If you looked throughout its window you could see others worlds as well.  
  
"Ansem!" Sora called. So did the others.  
  
Pete came in, walking normally and sat on the voluptous chair that rested in the center of the room. A huge spark stormed and he fell on the floor.  
  
"Ansem must have left him." Mickey said, rushing to check on Pete.  
  
"Pete? Pete!" Maran was calling.  
  
They all got relieved when he opened his eyes.  
  
"HA!" he said, stabbing Capitulyn with his Keyblade.  
  
"Capitulyn!" the others yelled.  
  
A black and white matter was coming out of her and fusing with the Keyblade. When it seemed to be full, Pete threw it away.  
  
"I came to the point where I don't need any of this rubbish. Behold... the MERGING!" he said, raising his arms. 


	8. Chapter 8: The King's Castle

Pete came in, walking normally and sat on the voluptous chair that rested in the center of the room. A huge spark stormed and he fell on the floor.  
  
"Ansem must have left him." Mickey said, rushing to check on Pete.  
  
"Pete? Pete!" Maran was calling.  
  
They all got relieved when he opened his eyes.  
  
"HA!" he said, stabbing Capitulyn with his Keyblade.  
  
"Capitulyn!" the others yelled.  
  
A black and white matter was coming out of her and fusing with the Keyblade. When it seemed to be full, Pete threw it away.  
  
"I came to the point where I don't need any of this rubbish. Behold... the MERGING!" he said, raising his arms.  
  
The castle began trembling again, but this time, thousand times harder. It seemed that the merging had indeed started.  
  
"Sora... Maran... listen to me..." Capitulyn's voice echoed on Sora and Maran's minds. "Here are your Keys..." their Keyblades, then, came floating from the sky and crashed the window, landing on their owners' hands. "Use them... you know how... just like you did with the swords..." then, the voice faded, along with her body.  
  
"Hahahahahahahahah... it'll soon be over!" Pete said.  
  
Sora and Maran, with their Keys in hand, faced him.  
  
"Ansem, get out. Fight like a man." Maran demanded.  
  
"Leave Pete alone. Our business is with you, not with him." Sora completed.  
  
"Do you think I'm stupid? If I came out of this body, I'd be swallowed by the merging, too. Bwhahahahaha! But if I stick with this body, it's it what is going to be swallowed."  
  
"So where are you?" Maran yelled. "Where are you controlling Pete from?"  
  
"Use your head!" Riku said. "He's in the only place that this merging would never affect!"  
  
"Kingdom Hearts..." Sora said...  
  
The trembling continued, in a lower rate, and the windows of the castle began to break.  
  
"But how are we going to get to Kingdom Hearts?" Sora asked Mickey.  
  
"Through the way you got last year. Do you remember?" Mickey asked.  
  
"...The End of the World... then... a destroyed Destiny Islands..." Sora was remembering. "So that destroyed Destiny Islands must have been the in-between, where we first met..." he said to Maran.  
  
"We need to find a gate to the in-between! And fast!" Maran concluded.  
  
In a great timing, a big airship crashed into the tower, destroyin the very few parts of it that remained. It was the Highwind.  
  
"Hey, ya bunch o' smartasses, what the hell is going on?" Cid yelled.  
  
"Come on!" Mickey said, jumping into the airship, then the others did the same.  
  
On the cockpit, Sora explained everything to the group.  
  
"I'd have concluded the very same thing." Donald said. "Although the gate disappeared when you entered."  
  
"We must check it out. Come on!" Sora said. "MOVE!"  
  
The airship moved away from the castle, in direction to the space, trying to avoid the merging turbulences.  
  
"We don't have much time. Can this be fastened?" Maran asked Cid.  
  
"Ya shut the hell up! I'm doin' my best..." Cid said, nervously piloting the airship, trying to not be hit by the world pieces which were floating in space.  
  
"If I hadn't told Pete to stay taking care of Rina... he'd be okay, now, with us..." Maran said, sad.  
  
"Well, if he was okay, Ansem would possess any other of us, maybe him, too. We can't blame ourselves for stuff that have no importance. Come on, focus." Sora said.  
  
"I know... thanks..." Maran said, looking throughout the window, expecting to see something.  
  
"There! There is that funky world we were at!" Cid said, preparing the arship to take off.  
  
Then, the airship trembled, but it didn't have anything to do with the merging. It seemed that some kind of pressure was holding the airship away from the world.  
  
"What the hell is goin' on?!" Cid yelled, smashing the lading lever. "What he hell????"  
  
After forcing the entrace, the arship finally made its way into the world's atmostphere.  
  
"This world must have some kind of barrier... it must be important, hold something important..." Maran said.  
  
"Well, it holds the game to Kingdom Hearts." Sora said. "Maybe that's why our gummi ship couldn't land and we had to jump."  
  
"I'm landing it but you guys better jump and rush for th'gate, okay?" Cid said.  
  
"All right!" Sora and Maran said, rushing to the deck. So did Mickey and Riku.  
  
Once on land, Sora approached Riku.  
  
"Sorry, Riku, but I don't think you'll be able to get in."  
  
"Oh... I see. Don't worry. I'll cover things up here. Just... don't... get hurt..." he said, pausing.  
  
"Don't worry, pal." Sora said, hugging his friend.  
  
"Look! It's there!" Mickey pointed at the floating door. "It must be there beacuse we had already left the in-between. Sora, how did you fly like that previously?"  
  
"Huh? Oh, I remembered something I learned with a friend of mine... Peter Pan... when you want something, you have to believe... believe there's a way... a way to accomplish that."  
  
"That's deep. So let's all believe we can... fly..." Maran said.  
  
Then, the three began floating in direction of the door. Riku was watching them from afar.  
  
"Sora... be... careful..." he said, trying to hold on a tree to not fall because of the trembling.  
  
They came in.  
  
...  
  
...  
  
"Sora?" a familiar voice was calling in his head.  
  
"Sora?"...  
  
"Sora, you lazy bum. I knew that I'd find you snoozing down here." it was Kairi who was speaking.  
  
"Kairi?" Sora called. "Kairi, are you here?" it was all dark, nothing could be seen.  
  
"No! This huge black thing swallowed me up! I couldn't breathe, I couldn't-!" it was Sora's voice but it wasn't him who was speaking.  
  
"Are you still dreaming?" Kairi's voice said, again.  
  
Sora, then, remembered this was what happened after he woke up from a very weird dream, where he fought a Darkside and everything.  
  
"Maran!" it was Rina's voice, this time.  
  
"Rina!" he tried to call her, but it was as futile as Sora's calls.  
  
"What took you so long? I was almost leaving." Rina's voice was echoing.   
  
"Sorry, but I..." it was Maran's voice, but it wasn't him who was speaking.  
  
"You... what?" it was Rina again.  
  
"Nothing. Here are the prisms..." Maran's voice echoed. Then, it faded.  
  
"What's going on?" Maran asked Sora, although he couldn't see him.  
  
"You must be reviewing your memories... the in-between is a unplanned environment, so don't expect common things to happen here." Mickey said.  
  
Then a little light lit. The three could see each other, then.  
  
"What are you doing here?" another familiar voice asked. It was Ansem.  
  
"Ansem, we're here to stop you. We know you're being controlled by those cloaked guys. You have no fault of all this." Maran said.  
  
"Yeah. So if you're attacking, so will we. But we won't be killing you." Sora said.  
  
"I'm glad you understood that." Mickey said.  
  
"Hahahahahahahah! How could I, the great ruler Ansem, be controlled by a bunch of..." then, three cloaked guys appeared in front of Sora, Maran and Mickey. "...What?"  
  
"We came..." one of the cloaked guys must have said, the voice wasn't listened, was felt. "...To stop you."  
  
"You're talking with us? You better leave Ansem alone, he's got too much power to be possessed." Sora said.  
  
"Let it be." another must have said.  
  
"Sora... Maran... get your Keys." Mickey said, getting his Keyblade was well.  
  
Maran, Sora and Mickey ran towards the three cloaked figures, which dodged the attacks and began to charge the known black and white balls of energy.  
  
Sora remembered, then, what Capitulyn said when she returned them the Keyblades. She said to use them like they did with the swords.  
  
"Maran! Let's go the uniting we made when we defeated the Unknown!" Sora said.  
  
"Yeah! Ok!" Maran and Sora joined their Keys and concentrated their energies on them, and the white and black energy began to shine.  
  
"Yes." Mickey said.   
  
He raised his Keyblade and all the energy came to it. He swang the Keyblade and threw the energy against the cloaked guys, who quickly faded and turned into nothing but cloaks.  
  
"Hahahahahah, thanks!" Ansem's voice again. "I could, myself, take care of these morons, but thanks."  
  
"What? Why is Ansem still like this?" Sora asked Mickey.  
  
"Hmmm... I have no idea..." he said. "Sorry but I can't think of why."  
  
"Maran?" Sora asked.  
  
"Well, we were four, right? But we are three here, now. We fought three cloaked guys." he began.  
  
"There must be one... Pete's equivalent... and may be the one who's controlling Ansem." Mickey completed.  
  
"Great! So if we defeat this guy we'll get Ansem and Pete! Come on, let's look for this guy." Sora said.  
  
The scenery began to take form...  
  
Everything was "cracked", like Destiny Islands previously were, but it was a different place.  
  
"That's... my... castle..." Mickey said. "It's Disney Castle!"  
  
Sora, then, recognized the place.  
  
"Why did we end up here?" Maran asked.  
  
"Ansem's insane, did you forget?"  
  
The floor trembled really hard and a cloaked figure appeared at the entrace of the castle.  
  
"Adventure your way in finding me, clueless morons!!" it was the last cloaked guy, "Ansem's still on our side."  
  
"'Our' side? You're the only one remaining!" Maran said.  
  
"Have you ever wondered how did we spread like this? We were previously just shells. Ansem bred us. We can raise thousands more of us. They're being raised right on this moment, or you thought all this time Ansem's been sitting on his chair, laughing like a moron? The fighting part remained to me, though."  
  
"Bring it on! We're getting tired of this but we could take you out!" Maran said. "It's you and me, I'm defending my friend Pete!"  
  
"That's so lovely." he jumped and landed in front of Maran. "So be it."  
  
As Unknown, he began charging a dark wave, whilst dodging Maran's attacks.  
  
"Maran! The double Keyblade thing!" Sora advised.  
  
"Uh-huh!" Maran tried to separated both keys. "What?" but he wasn't able to.  
  
"It's useless. He only has Oblivion, while you, Sora, carries the Oathkeeper. Me and Pete shall carry our kingdom's Key."  
  
Maran didn't have time to focus on what Mickey was saying, the cloaked guy quickly charged his dark wave and threw it against Maran.  
  
"NO!" Sora got desperated and began throing fireballs from his Keyblade.  
  
But Maran wasn't hurt.  
  
"What?" Sora suspected why Maran wasn't hurt.  
  
"He's darkness. Did you forget?" Mickey said to Sora. "It seems that our enemy had."  
  
"How did you...?" the cloaked man began. "You're a smartass, that's what you are. Don't forget that it won't be a victory for you if you win. There are thousands of us being created right now... in there..." he sinisterly pointed at the cracked Disney Castle.  
  
"I'm coming in." Mickey said.  
  
"I'll come with you!" Sora completed.  
  
"You're not trepassing this door. Not with me in here. You think I'm stupid?" he said.   
  
"I'll finish you off first." Maran said, full of courage.  
  
Maran began running towards the cloaked guy. He didn't prepare to dodge. He stopped the Keyblade with his left hand and holded it with the right one.  
  
"These... are just toys..." he stole the Keyblade from Maran. "...As foolish as you!".  
  
A big wave, now black and white, was thrown against Maran, Sora and Mickey.  
  
"Aaahhhhh!!!" that was hurting, then.  
  
...  
  
Then, someone came flashing from above, followed by a dark wave of energy.  
  
"Pete!" Maran recognized. "Are you... alright?"  
  
"Yes, Maran... I'm finally free. Come on. Let's show this bastard how we deal with the likes of these." he, followed by Maran, began an intense fight against the lone enemy.  
  
Mickey came near Sora.  
  
"I don't understand, why would Ansem leave Pete's body?" he asked.  
  
"Surely he's plotting a bigger plan. Let's get in, now, Mickey. The guy is distracted."  
  
"Ok, let's go."  
  
Maran and Pete saw Mickey and Sora entering the castle, as the door closed and almost broke down.  
  
Meanwhile, at the Highwind...  
  
"Hey, what the &#(# is that??" Cid screamed.  
  
He'd spotted Hirosh messing around inside the command room.  
  
"That's Hirosh. I believe you remember him with his red hair, threatning look. He battled Sora once." Riku explained. "You were with him."  
  
Cid approached the little Hirosh. He couldn't believe it.  
  
"That's not that guy! That guy was... the only guy that ever made me chill!"  
  
"That's his heartless-human form, I believe. Just leave him be. The only one that seemed to understand him was that girl... Capi-something..."  
  
"Capitulyn..." the little Hirosh said, with his funny voice.  
  
"Yeah, that's right." Cid said. "That little freak does understand us. Uh, I gotta watch my mouth..."  
  
"Baa..." Hirosh said, approaching Cid, pointing at him.  
  
"Hey, get away from me!" Cid ran away.  
  
Riku stopped Hirosh's movement with his feet on Hirosh's head.  
  
"Pay attention." he said. "I know you're not as useless as you look. You're with Ansem, aren't you? You passing information, aren't you?"  
  
Hirosh's little eyes barely focused Riku's head.  
  
"Whoo..." he said, returning to the command room chair. That seemed to be infinitely fun.  
  
Riku decided to leave the room, but before that he took a last look at Hirosh.  
  
"I'm keeping my two eyes on you, little freak. I KNOW you're not just a... whatever you look like." he said, closing the door.  
  
"Baa..." Hirosh said, as a conclusion.  
  
Inside the cracked Disney Castle, everything was a huge mess. Mickey couldn't believe in his eyes.  
  
"All the beauty this place had... was easily destroyed..." he was saying while walking.  
  
"It's hard to make but easy to destroy." Sora said. "Let's look for the Queen!"  
  
They rushed to the main corridor of the castle, which gave access to all rooms and stairs.  
  
"Cough... cough... hey, who's there...?" a tiny voice was saying.  
  
"Jimmy! Jimmy Cricket, are you alright?" Sora put him in his hand.  
  
"Alright, yes, I may be. But I don't know about the others. Something really odd happened!" he said. "A man came in, a very creepy man. He was wanting the..."  
  
"...And did he get it?" Mickey quickly asked.  
  
"Get what?" Sora asked.  
  
"It's not the right time for you to know, Sora... sorry..." Mickey said.  
  
"Yes, he did. I believe he's still here. There are some really odd noises... I see weird shadows... I'm glad I made it till here... I was at the gummi ship dock, you know."  
  
"Ok, let's look for everybody." Sora said. "Where to?"  
  
"The throne room..." Mickey said.  
  
The way to the throne room was as creepy as it has been till here. The whole castle seemed even more destroyed than Hollow Bastion previously was.  
  
"The door..." Mickey pointed.  
  
The door's shape had changed, it then had the symbol of the heartlesses.  
  
"This is... crazy..." Sora said.  
  
"These non-existants depend on the heartlesses to spread in here. This must be their tribute. C'mon, let get in. You afraid?" Mickey asked.  
  
"No. I have seen a lot until now. I think nothing can scare me anymore."  
  
"Think again!" a voice echoed in the castle. It was Ansem's. "Come inside."  
  
"Ansem!" Sora yelled. "What are you planning?"  
  
The voice seemed to have ceased.  
  
"I'm getting tired of this. When are we going to finally meet him face-to-face?"  
  
"Let's try getting in." Mickey said, trying to move the handler.   
  
No sucess. Mickey, then, remembered there were two special doors in the own door, which Donald and Goofy used. With a touch, Donald's door opened and they got in.  
  
The throne room was unrecognizable. Mickey seemed perplex, though. The throne was no longer there. On its place, it seemed to be a door, also shaped in the heartless symbol.  
  
"You tired of this?" Ansem's voice again. "You think nothing can scare you?"  
  
The wall got destroyed by a huge carriage that entered the room. It was all black with white dots all around it. It had some Halloween-like pumpinks, also in black and white. It opened by itself, and inside were Maran and Pete, asleep.  
  
"I don't think it's scary but it's worrying, isn't it? Or you don't care about them?" the voice asked.  
  
Sora wasn't listening. He and Mickey were already at the carriage, trying to get Maran and Pete out of it.  
  
"Maran! Maran! Pete! Guys..." Sora was calling. "Mickey, what can we do?"  
  
"I don't know. But I feel... I feel that... what we must know will be answered once we get through... that door..." he pointed at the door located at where the throne was.  
  
"What about Maran and Pete?"  
  
"Ok, you stay here, taking care of them. I'll go in." he said leaving Sora.  
  
"Don't... DON'T!" he yelled, making Mickey stop.  
  
A huge scythe fell and almost hit Mickey. A cloaked guy was holding it, he came down and uncovered his head.  
  
He had deep blue eyes and white hair. His face was triangle-like, and had a scary look.  
  
"Time to forget." he said, raising his hands, and a white flash surrounded the place. "Time to... change." he concluded.  
  
Mickey, then, began trembling furiously.  
  
"Mickey!" Sora called.  
  
Mickey turned to him and his eyes were red and scary. He handed his Keyblade.  
  
"You shall be eliminated, now." the man said, as Mickey approached Sora, ready to fight.  
  
"No, Mickey!" Sora was saying, while dodging Mickey's Keyblade's swings.  
  
"Do as I say..." Mickey was saying while fighting. "Don't be afraid... open the door...".  
  
"What?" Sora couldn't focus. "What are you saying? Are you possessed or what?"  
  
"Listen to me." Mickey began charging some kind of attack with his Keyblade. "Walk through the door, Sora..." the attack got charged and was thrown, hitting Sora.  
  
"Come on, Sora!" Maran said. He had recovered.  
  
"Maran! You all right?"  
  
"I think we are. I just woke up." Pete said.  
  
Mickey, then, furiously began running against them, with his Keyblade in hands, charging another attack.  
  
"Your arm!" Maran pointed at Sora's hurt arm. "Let me take care of it..." but Maran couldn't do anything, Mickey threw his next attack on him, throwing him against the window.  
  
"What is wrong with him?" Pete asked.  
  
"I... I don't know... he keeps saying... I should open the door... I don't understand..." Sora said, in pain.  
  
"Do it. You should. Maran also should. Maran!" Pete ran to help Maran.  
  
Sora got up and dodged another attack of Mickey's.  
  
"Walk... through the door... listen to me, Sora. You remember? The platform! The dream! The darkside!" Mickey said, then Sora remembered about a dream he had, when he first saw a darkside.  
  
"Maran, you ok?" Sora asked.  
  
"Yes. Come on. Pete said he'd handle Mickey."  
  
"That's our job, anyway." he said.  
  
"What? What job?" Sora asked.  
  
"Me and Mickey. We are the sighters. You are the ones who will open the door. Since we're still in the in-between... you both will have to do this, since Capitulyn isn't with us anymore..." Pete said.  
  
"So you and Mickey were here just to show us..." Maran began.  
  
"...The door..." Sora said. "Come on, Maran!"  
  
Pete quickly defended Sora and Maran against Mickey's attacks.  
  
"Quick... there isn't much time..." Mickey said, slowly, while still fighting Pete.  
  
Sora and Maran ran to the other side of the room.  
  
"Where do you think you are going?" the white-haired man asked. "You do belong here but I do not want you here." he said, almost laughing.  
  
Sora and Maran didn't hear. They were already in front of the huge door.  
  
"Cross that. I challange you." the man said.  
  
Sora looked at Maran.  
  
"I remember I dreamed about something like this..." Maran said.  
  
"Me too. But I... I wasn't able to open the door. I wonder..."  
  
"You won't be able to open the door. Capitulyn is dead!" the man said, laughing.  
  
Sora and Maran raised their Keyblades and a dark shining came out of Maran's and a white one from Sora's. The sparkies entered in both keyholes and a unlocking sound was heard.  
  
"I wonder..." the man said. "If I should stop you."  
  
"Just try!" Sora said.  
  
"Don't! We don't have time! Come on, we're so close!" Maran said.  
  
"I won't. I couldn't." the man was acting weird.  
  
"You better." Sora entered, followed by Maran.  
  
Before really entering, Sora gave a last look at Mickey, there, still brainlessly fighting Pete.  
  
"Cross that." the man repeated. "You're in my world now. The... ONLY world...".  
  
When Sora and Maran finally saw some light, they were at a place that couldn't be described. There were some fragments of Disney Castle, others from other worlds they had visited.  
  
"Where... are we?" Sora asked.  
  
"No clue..."  
  
In front of them was Ansem.  
  
"You came..." he said. "Why?"  
  
"To save you." Sora said.  
  
"Um, yeah. They are controlling you." Maran completed.  
  
"Who?" he asked.  
  
From nowhere, the white-haired man appeared.  
  
"Don't try to make him learn anything. This... is his mind. Empty, really. Fragments mean nothing. Where are your thoughts, Ansem?"  
  
"Thoughts..." Ansem repeated.  
  
"Hah hah hah hah hah hah" the man laughed. "I ask you, where are your thoughts?"  
  
"What thoughts?" Ansem asked.  
  
"Stop that. We're taking you down."  
  
"Don't you get it? The merging has concluded, everything is now one. That means... one of you shall fall."  
  
"What?" they both yelled.  
  
"One world. One key... one master for it." he said. "I'd choose Capitulyn but, oh, dear, she's not with us anymore."  
  
Sora and Maran looked at each other in the eyes.  
  
"It does make sense." Sora said. "But I don't want you to die..."  
  
"Oh, no, it doesn't mean dying..." the man said, "By 'falling' I mean the person will find non-existance. Heh, like I once had. Your hope will be... taking advantage on someone just like I did with this moron." he pointed at Ansem, still clueless.  
  
"Ansem!" Sora yelled, then. "Wake up!"  
  
"What?" Maran asked Sora.  
  
"Just do this. Ansem! The princesses! The Keys! Wake up! Ansem... reports! The shells... the non-existants..." Sora was saying to him.  
  
"I... what are those things you're saying...?" Ansem asked.  
  
"Don't even bother. He doesn't have a clue."  
  
"Ansem... Capitulyn... your dauther... she... loved you...! She'd sacrifice herself for you again and again. You, too, loved her, didn't you?" Maran decided to say.  
  
Ansem, then, had tears in his eyes.  
  
"Capitulyn... I remember... someone... I..."  
  
"He won't remember, morons. You'll be trying for eternety. Now, I shall randomly pick one of you two to survive, and another to... disappear." he raised his hands.  
  
"HAAH!!" Ansem yelled. "Capitulyn!! Where is Capitulyn!?" he was yelling.  
  
"She's dead, Ansem. They..." Sora pointed at the cloaked white-haired man, "...killed her."  
  
"What?" the man seemed to be getting scared.  
  
"You... non-existant bastards... I always thought that studying you would lead me to an abyss but I... I didn't know it would really happen!" Ansem said. "VANISH!"  
  
"You do not give me orders anymore, Ansem." the man said. "I am the one who gives orders now." he raised his hands.  
  
The scenery began to change. 


	9. Final Chapter

...  
  
...  
  
"Wake up!"  
  
...  
  
Sora and Maran couldn't see each other anymore. Ansem couldn't either.  
  
The scenery formed a familiar place. It was Hollow Bastion, but it was a bit different. It was normal, without the mechanics all over and the cracked down towers. A woman was climbing down the stairs of the hall.  
  
"Why you... why? Why, you must ask." the white-haired man appeared.  
  
"What are you saying? Who's this woman?" Sora asked.  
  
It was like the previous times, they were seeing memories, but whose memories?  
  
"...Ansem?" Maran called. "Do you remember this?"  
  
Ansem appeared, then. He seemed to be trying to remember who that woman was.  
  
"Annabelle... my... precious... Annabelle..." he said.  
  
"This isn't possible!" the white-haired man screamed. "You weren't supposed to remember of any of this!"  
  
"Take that!" Sora said, satisfied at the man's frustation. "Ansem! Show him! Show him you're the ruler! Make him... bow to you!".  
  
Ansem looked at Sora and then to the man.  
  
"Alexander... you spoiled brat..." he said, it seemed that was really the man's name because he struck back at that sound. "I never thought it would be bad for my family if you worked here, but you caused... too much trouble."  
  
"YOU caused ME much trouble! I became a non-existant! Just like your wife! And your daughter! You are the crazy in here. Look..." he pointed at the image of Annabelle. "She's happy. She's looking around, thinking she has the best husband in the world, thinking you'll be happy forever, that you'll never harm neither her or your daughter. Well, she thought all wrong."  
  
"I think the one who is forgetting things now is you." Ansem said, looking down. "Let's change!" he said, raising his arms, making the scenery change.  
  
Alexander seemed to be in this one. He was a young white-haired man who was looking at a window.  
  
"What were you looking at, Alexander? At the plan you plotted! You were trying to stab me in the back."  
  
He was looking at a gibbet. It was in the castle's garden. In this gibbet, there was a doll painted in black, hung up.  
  
"They said I was the one who accomplished this blasphemy. But it wasn't the whole plan."  
  
Capitulyn came in.  
  
"Alex... did you see what my father did?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Why was that?"  
  
"I don't know. But I know you should run away with me."  
  
"What? But I must stay!"  
  
"Stay? You want to end up like that doll?"  
  
"He's my father and I must stay. I'll... talk to him."  
  
Alexander ran and hold her arm.  
  
"Come with me, Capitulyn. Come with me." he said.  
  
"I won't, Alex, please... leave me alone!"  
  
"You'll... regret it..." he said.  
  
"What would the ultimate plan be?" Ansem asked Alexander, then. "Let's see."  
  
The images changed. Now it was the laboratory, a place which could be accessed only through the walls in-between. It was where Hirosh was made back a heartless.  
  
Alexander was there.  
  
"He's been acting weird but I was smart. He's studying the creatures without hearts. If I become one of them, I'll be able to... take advantage on him. Power blinds people." he said, entering a machine. "Ansem, we'll meet again!"  
  
The machine closed its door and some sparks happened inside it.  
  
"You were really crazy, Alexander." Ansem said.  
  
The scene's Ansem came in.  
  
"I gotta figure this out, now." he approached the machine and a big spark surrounded the area.  
  
"Whaa--"  
  
Some black balls of energy appeared in the whole room.  
  
"...Darkness..."  
  
"...Light..."  
  
"...Non-existant..."  
  
...  
  
...  
  
"...The door..."  
  
"What??" the Ansem was saying.  
  
A huge dark spark covered him and dragged him throughout the window, leaving a nasty dark trail.  
  
Some seconds later, Ansem came down like a rock falling from the sky. He seemed different.  
  
"The... power... ...the power!" he raised his hands, then, in commemoration.  
  
"Daddy?" Capituly was at the door.  
  
"Capitu... Capitulyn..." Ansem said. "Come in, darling."  
  
Capitulyn was wearing a dark dress. She's always been a joyful girl, it didn't matter the color of ther clothes.  
  
All became dark, then.  
  
"You know what happened. First your daughter. Then your wife. In a eye blink, all your kingdom had vanished, all that remained was the castle itself. A closure of darkness... pure darkness." Alexander was saying. "It doesn't matter if I planned this all. You fell for it so you are guilty as well."  
  
"What? What are you saying you brat? I gave you confort and food... and you do this? You were the cause of all that. I was trying to show my daughter and wife that I had the ruler position because I deserved, because I was wise, not because I took advantage on someone else, just like it had been rumored." Ansem, then, handed his staff.  
  
"Ansem, you will end up being killed!" Maran yelled.  
  
Ansem looked at Maran and Sora.  
  
"Thank you. But this is my business." he said.  
  
Sora and Maran nodded, agreeing with him.  
  
"You wanna fight? We will fight." Alexander conjured a white and thin sword. "So be it!"  
  
The fight was in a whole filled with parryings and provocations.  
  
"You're forgetting another thing, Alexander..." Ansem said at a point of the battle.  
  
"What, that you're stronger? Think again, old man!" Alexander struggled hard against Ansem, imprisioning him against a wall that seemed to have came up from nowhere.  
  
"No. Uh..." Ansem was stuck, "You're forgetting that... I'M STILL YOUR CREATOR!" he said, pulling Alexander back really fast.  
  
Alexander tried to get up but he couldn't. Ansem approached him.  
  
"You entered in that machine and I studied you before being taken. I am no fool, I made notes, but I didn't need them. I have them all here." he pointed at his own head, "I'm sorry but I'll have to punish you."  
  
"So do it! Punish me! Do it! Show me and all the existance that you're the strongest!"  
  
Ansem approached even more.  
  
"All your shells under formation have been destroyed. The merging sucked them all. These shells were your hope, weren't they?" Ansem said, almost laughing.  
  
"You... damn... YOU!" Alexander quickly got up and tried to hit Ansem's head. The sword was gone.  
  
"Say this is your world. C'mon, say it. It'll still be a LIE!" Alexander's sword appeared at Ansem's hand. "You need this?"  
  
"So this is it."  
  
"Yes, it is. But I'm not going to kill you."  
  
"What?" Sora and Maran asked, at the same time.  
  
"Even the worse crimes have penalties that should be applied. You won't get rid of me easily. Let's get back." soon, handcuffs appeared at Alexander's hands.  
  
The scenery began to change.  
  
...  
  
...  
  
...  
  
...  
  
A couple of days later...  
  
"...And what can I say next? I'll keep saying 'I'm sorry' till I drop dead. But I believe we can work together. Who's with me?" Ansem was saying in an orlop, at Twilight Town's central square.  
  
The crowd applauded and threw flowers at him. Besides him were Cid and Leon.  
  
"Sir..." Cid said. "Your castle..."  
  
Ansem and the whole crowd looked up. Hollow Bastion was flying in their direction.  
  
"There's no reason to worry... our new ruler's castle will be stablished in here." an old man, Twilight's last president, said in the microphone.  
  
"It can't be called 'Hollow Bastion', anymore. Not after all the improvements we've done on it." Leon said.  
  
"You're right. But I already got a name for it..."  
  
A few days later, the name stone was placed in the castle's gate. 'Capitubelle Bastion' it said, revealing the new name of the castle, a joint between Annabelle and Capitulyn, the two greatest loves of Ansem's existance.  
  
"Sir..." Cid said.  
  
"Oh, right. Here..." Ansem gave Cid a box. He opened it and it was filled with navigation gummies.  
  
"Oh, yeah! Thank you so much. We'll now be able to explore some new areas of this newly formed world!"  
  
"Just don't get into trouble, because I can't make distinctions when dealing with penalties."  
  
"Hey, you forgot with who your talkin'? I'm the great Cid! The legend!" he raised his arms in pride.  
  
Soon, Ansem was saying goodbye to all Cid's crew, which was entering in the Highwind.  
  
"Come by, don't forget to come by!" Ansem was saying.  
  
"We sure will. Good luck." Leon said.  
  
"For you guys too!"  
  
The airship was gone.  
  
...  
  
...  
  
...  
  
"Baa! Baa!" the little Hirosh was yelling around inside the airship.  
  
"Shut the &$#& up you little freak! We're trying to fly in here!" Cid said.  
  
Following the little Hirosh, came a little creature with the same stature of him, but with a white hair.  
  
"Whoo-baa! Whooo!" the little Alexander was yelling.  
  
"I told you, Leon, not to keep this one. And we got another one!" Cid said.  
  
"Come on, don't you feel sorry for them?" Leon said, looking at both little creatures. "Isn't it conforting...? Knowing that the evil and powerful always fall, sooner or later? You'll always remember that when looking at these two."  
  
The two half-heartlesses came out of the room running. It seemed they were fighting because of a piece of rubbish little Hirosh stole from little Alexander.  
  
...  
  
...  
  
...  
  
"So we have only one world now. A world filled with all of the other worlds. It's good. Now we can go and come back without needing a gummi ship." Riku was saying.  
  
"I agree. And I'm glad the ones who really got sucked by the merging were the shells Alexander was breeding. But, um, Riku..." Ansem stopped talking and got up from his chair.  
  
"Riku..." Ansem began.  
  
"Yes, Ansem?"  
  
"Capitubelle Bastion's been too empty. Would you like to live here?" Ansem asked.  
  
"What? But... why?"  
  
"Alexander's been like a son to me, but after what he did... I don't think I can count him. You could be my helper, like he was." Ansem said.  
  
"Well, I really didn't know where to go. I was thinking about looking for a pension but... I accept. It'll be excellent to be the ruler's assistant!" Riku said, excited.  
  
"Excellent. You know how to get to the laboratory?"  
  
"Well, you'll have to show me."  
  
Ansem and Riku walked to the hall and Ansem showed him the hidden button that opened a hidden door which led to a very narrow stairway. The lab was there, the basement of the castle, accessed only throught the walls' in-between.  
  
...  
  
...  
  
...  
  
Clouds... the sea... the sun...  
  
...Some places remained untouched...  
  
...In a separated place.  
  
...In a separated time.  
  
...In a separated... circunstance.  
  
Sora woke up in the beach in the island. After he woke up, he saw Kairi in surprise.  
  
"Whoa! Gimme a break, Kairi!" he says, after Kairi giggled.  
  
"Sora, you lazy bum. I knew that I'd find you snoozing down here."  
  
"No! This huge black thingswallowed me up! I couldn't breathe, I couldn't... oh..."  
  
"Are you still dreaming?"  
  
"It wasn't a dream! Or was it? I don't know. What was that place? So bizarre..."  
  
"Yeah, sure. Come on, get up. We gotta go to school." she said, helping Sora to get up.  
  
...  
  
...  
  
...  
  
Back there at that town...  
  
...Some places remained untouched...  
  
...In a separated place.  
  
...In a separated time.  
  
...In a separated... circunstance.  
  
"Maran..." Rina said. "I thought you said you had the prisms we needed."  
  
"Well, I kind of... um..."  
  
"You forgot them?"  
  
"I lost them!"  
  
"I knew it!" she said, turning back. "But you know..." she said, turning again, "It doesn't matter..."  
  
"Yes. It doesn't." Maran said, placing his hand on her shoulder.  
  
...  
  
...  
  
...  
  
...Some places remained untouched...  
  
...But others don't...  
  
Donald Duck and Goofy were walking in a trail when they found a letter on the floor. Their dog quickly came and got it.  
  
"Hey, you moron, let me see that!" the duck said, already nervous.  
  
"Hy-ak! Whose letter could it be?" Goofy said, taking it from Pluto's mouth.  
  
It had a symbol on it. A head with two big round ears. Donald opened it up.  
  
"Who's... King Mickey?" he asked.  
  
"No clue. It must be some kids' playing. Come on, we got a lot to do. Today's our first day at work, we gotta get there early!"  
  
"Yeah. A mercenary's job is always tiring. And a mercenary's first day is a lot more. MOVE, COME ON!" the duck began running, kind of competiting with Pluto who was also running. Goofy tried to tag along, running too.  
  
The letter fell on the floor, opened.  
  
...  
  
... 


End file.
